Everybody Scream
by Lisp
Summary: 'Somewhere between going to the costume party and having to fight for his life, Soul decides that Death City definitely takes Halloween way too seriously.' SoMa. A Nightmare-Before-Christmas inspired Halloween story.
1. Chapter 1

**This story is dedicated to everybody that requested it; everybody that reviewed my stories; everyone who favourited and followed; everyone who read. Thank you so much for giving me faith in myself.**

**I do not own Soul Eater, nor Disney's rendition of Tim Burton's ****_The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)_**** by Henry Selick, scored by Danny Elfman. All italicised references are from the separate songs from the film, and appear in order as they would when watching the movie (some double up).**

**I do not own the image used as the cover for this story - I sourced it online from ****_NeonxPanda_****on deviantART. Credit where it is due.**

**Enjoy.**

* * *

**EVERYBODY SCREAM  
**by Lisp.

_In this town, don't we love it now;  
Everybody's waiting for the next surprise!_

The two of them sat on the dusty ground, their breaths hushed and their eyes wide with excitement as they stared, entranced, at the page before them. They'd been told not to touch it, no, their mother had warned them not to play with it! But they hadn't listened, and now they were crouched on the garage floor, gazing with awe at the old book from the basement. It had fancy, gilded lettering proclaiming it to be, _The Craft of The Elders._ Daddy had said it was some sort of witchy book, with all sorts of nasty things in it, and they were not to touch. But Daddy wouldn't know, Mummy wouldn't know, and everything was so exciting. Each page had weird, twisted letters and shapes that the two boys had never seen before. They didn't understand this book, but it felt powerful. On Halloween, most of the other kids from school would be out Trick-Or-Treating, but no, they would have the best trick of all!

They were going to summon a warlock.

The eldest of the two leaned in, trying to make out a big, weird word. It wasn't like the ones he was learning in class, but his little brother was watching him intently, so he'd have to figure out what it said. "Wa . . . _warlock._ G-great war . . . warlock. Je – Jen – _Jenovus_?"

"Jenovus!" his younger brother repeated excitedly, watching the book. As they spoke the word, the page flipped. No, he hadn't touched it, he swore! It flipped by itself! It was a magic book – it must have been working. They were going to meet a real wizard, and he'd let them fly and go invisible and scare all of their friends! Nobody was going to top this.

The book started to glow. For a moment, there was only a greenish tinge to the ink of the pages, but soon the writing shone with luminescent pulses, starting to pound as if to an invisible drum beat. Both brothers, at first so excited, shrunk back with sudden fear. Was this working? Was the book doing the right thing, or was it going to turn around and eat them? What should they do? The youngest of the siblings was trembling, holding his brother's arm, and then he too was quivering as the book rose into the air, higher, higher - !

And then the light disappeared. The book fell, landing on the ground with a dull thud and causing the dust to puff up. Both children let out a sigh, their fear leaving, but they were both starting to think that maybe Daddy was right . . .

That was until the hair protruded from the middle of the book. It was odd – one moment there was nothing there, and the next, the spine was folding back and the top of a _head_ was sticking out. It looked strange, and both boys skidded back, whimpering. They were too scared to call for their parents, but it wouldn't matter, because they were here with only a babysitter while Mummy and Daddy went out to dinner. Nobody would help them now.

More of the man emerged – a face, sharp and handsome, framed by shoulder length black hair. Shoulders and a chest, strong and lean like a knife. Long legs, covered in dark grey suit pants that matched his old-fashioned blazer and deep blue ascot. Shoes with odd points on the end, like Daddy's dress ones. He held a cane in his right hand and he swung it to and fro as he stepped fully out of the book, looking down at the two snivelling mortal youths before him.

Both of the boys screamed when he grinned down at them, his eyes flashing bright blue as his cane began to glow with the same weird green light as before.

"Hallows Eve. How fitting," he said in a strong and sardonic voice, his hands rising at the two who had summoned him from his confining slumber. "And the place where it all began, too. This world is full of surprises. Halloween Town, the land of Death; what a nice playground." And then the light shone past the cane, and everything was white.

_Come with us and you will see,  
This, our town of Halloween._

"I still can't believe I have to do this," Soul said with a scowl, holding his bag tightly in his fist. "I mean, it's one thing for you to even make me _go_ to this stupid party. It's another to make me dress in some lame costume for a whole night. But to kick me out of my _own_ apartment, so that you can play _Barbie_ with your friends? That's low, even for you."

"Oh, stop complaining," Maka replied cheerfully, herding him toward the door. "If you see all of our costumes, then it will completely ruin the fun of us all meeting up again at the party! You can go and hang out at the Gallows manor with Black*Star and Kid for a while, and get ready there. Meanwhile, let us have all the fun over here, okay?"

And with that, she'd shoved him out of the apartment, closing the door in his face with a sunny smile. He looked at it in irritation for a moment before sighing and setting off toward the stairwell. _Great_. It was a widely known fact that Soul 'Eater' Evans hated Halloween. Whether it was because he didn't celebrate it when he was little like every other human being on the planet, or because he found dressing up foolishly uncool, nobody was quite certain, but he loathed the entire idea of the thing. The ritualistic prayers to the spirits, the seeing of dead loved ones – sure, that was cool. But the running around in dumb get-ups for a bit of candy? No way. And now the pinnacle of uncool was before him, on this stupid night of All Hallows Eve – Kid's fancy dress party. The Shinigami, whether due to stress from work – being Shinigami-sama was hard, after all – or begging from his weapons, it was uncertain, was throwing a big party for all of Shibusen, or so it seemed, at his mansion to celebrate the night. And everyone had to come in costume. That included one pissed-off Soul. He'd been adamant on not going initially, but when one is up against the power of Maka's puppy-dog eyes, Patti's scary face, Black*Star's yelling and a _whole lot of books to the head_, an argument can't last very long. He'd conceded to attend, even to dress up, no matter how much it had annoyed him.

But now he couldn't even relax in his own apartment before going to this stupid thing. Maka and the girls were all getting ready together or something and that meant that _oh, he wasn't _invited_ to stay in his room and live in his own apartment, which he'd owned before Maka even came into the picture, but that didn't matter because Liz, Patti and Tsubaki were coming over, so _of course_ he couldn't be there!_ He grumbled these thoughts to himself as he took the stairs two at a time, descending quickly due to his aggravation.

_Well,_ Soul thought with a spark, _if they're gonna' make me go through all this shit just for some idiotic party; I'm going to show them just what a cool costume is. Sheets, zombies? Please._ He held the bag in his hand with a grin. In the town of Death, where every day seemed to be like Halloween, there was only one choice. _If you're gonna' go, go big_.

If he saw any shadows looking particularly menacing among the pumpkin lights strung along the lampposts, if any bushes quivered and any sounds echoed around the quiet cobblestone pavements of his street, he dismissed them as holiday cheer for the night where the spirits came back to haunt them, and all the other superstitious shit like that which came with Halloween.

It _was_ ironic, that on tonight of all nights, the dead _would_ rise. And yet Death City, blinded by the orange glow from the shop-hangings and the decorative skeletons strung from the powerlines, saw it all, while seeing none of it.

_If they only understood.  
That he'd give it all up,  
If he only could._

Black*Star grinned, his feet propped on the expensive glass table and crossed at the ankles. He regarded his best friend with a cocked eyebrow, ignoring Kid's chidings to stop sullying the furniture with his shoes.

"So, what're you going as then, man? You can be a follower to me if you want!" he said, tipping his head back and stretching out his neck. "That'd be sweet."

"Only for you, idiot," Soul replied scornfully, half-reclined on a black leather couch. He, at least, had had the decency to take his shoes off. "And you'll see when it comes to tonight, won't you?"

Black*Star straightened, his blue hair bouncing with the sudden force. "Aw, that's no fair! Come on, Soul, I'll tell you what I'm going as!"

"I believe I already know," Kid said with a slow shake of his head, sitting primly on the Lazy-Boy. "It's completely ridiculous."

"Is not! You wish you'd thought of it, don't lie," Black*Star exclaimed. He turned to Soul eagerly. "I'm going as a God, man, it's gonna' be awesome."

"Uh . . . what?"

"You know, with the _yoga_ and stuff?" he replied, still obviously excited.

Kid put his head in his hands – perfectly symmetrical. "He means _toga_. I believe he means to represent one of the Greek gods, by the looks of things. It's completely ludicrous. He has the sheet, the golden belt and the leaves in his hair. It's absolutely stereotypical."

Soul raised his eyebrows. "Actually, that's pretty impressive. I figured you'd just cut holes in a blanket and wear it over your head, saying 'Boo!' and shit like that."

"That would be for mere peasants!" Black*Star said, his nose upturned. "Why, is that _your_ costume?"

"No," he replied, easily dodging the probe to say just what his costume was. "I ain't stupid, 'Star."

Black*Star pouted, but soon turned to Kid. "What are you going as, then? The number eight?"

"While that _would_ be appealing," the Shinigami replied with some indignation, "you should know that I am going to be a skeleton." At the other boys' looks, he grinned and clapped his hands together. "Think of the symmetry of the bones! Now that those accursed Lines of Sanzu are connected, I shall be perfectly balanced, _and_ the costume will match my hair!"

The ninja meister snorted. "Nice costume. Really shows all the _guts_ you have, Kid!"

As the two began to argue and fight, Soul blew his breath out through his teeth and stood. If they were going to act like children, he may as well raid the fridge and keep his appetite sated while he watched the show. He only wondered now what the girls were all going as, and whether Maka's costume was as cool as she seemed to think.

_The monsters are all missing,  
And the nightmares can't be found,  
And in this place there seems to be  
Good feeling all around!_

__Maka looked into the mirror and smiled. She couldn't help it – she was just so ecstatic about it all! She loved Halloween, no matter how much a certain stupid, conceited partner thought it was all a load of crap. When she was young, her mother would make her costumes by hand for her and the entire family would decorate the Albarn house in the scariest things they could find. There were spider-webs, vampires, mummies in coffins, and of course, the respect-paying altar to Shinigami-sama that everyone had in their homes. Whether they had a small pile of incense or some great statue, everyone on Halloween night would burn a candle beside a mask, in honour of Shinigami-sama and the dead that sided with him.

Kid was uncomfortable with this respect now being paid to him, but he'd done it before last year so he knew the drill well enough by now. Soul had been making jokes about it all week.

Despite stupid Soul, she was going to enjoy this night, and with her costume, she was going to look _kick-ass_.

"Your make-up is totally brilliant," Liz commented enviously as she curled the meister's hair. "I'm kind of scared just being this close to you."

"That's the idea," Maka replied happily, moving her head to the side in order to prevent any of her time-consuming-to-apply make-up to drip into her hair or onto the bathroom sink.

She was going to the party as a dead person. Not a zombie or anything lame like that, but an honest-to-Death murder victim. Through using special compound, tissue paper and fake blood, she'd applied a great slash to her throat. It looked gory, with thick rivers of blood cascading and drying on the hems of her torn white lace dress. Her eyes were shadowed and she'd applied eyeliner, so every time she closed them they looked stitched over, with the help of the dark mascara on her lashes. Her face had been lightly dusted with pale concealer and powder to make her skin look white and dead, but apart from that she had no other adornments – less was more. In fact, as she gazed upon her own appearance, she couldn't help but feel elated about how great it looked, how _real _it looked.

It was odd; they were all surrounded by the concept of Death, the fear of it, and the embodiment of it on a daily basis. At any moment, a meister or weapon could die in battle, their souls becoming nothing more than a fragment of memory for later musings and remorse. For the most part, their lives were strict and they brushed the thought of dying aside, trying to focus on the more mundane aspects of enjoying life, rather than the constant threat looming over their heads that they might not wake up the next morning.

But Halloween changed all that. It was like there was some kind of magic in the air, something that changed everyone's sombre outlook on the End, and made it all fun. Although people did not dress as witches – originally because of their fear of them, now, because of the truce, out of respect for them – zombies, murderers, ghouls, demons, the lot, were all accepted as costume ideas. What would normally strike fear in a meister or weapon's heart, what would normally be an opponent in a life-or-death situation, became comical. It was the one time of the year where the students of Shibusen could just be _students,_ kids out goofing off for the night and not worrying if someone was covered in 'blood', or if they were going to see their bed again.

And yet, Soul _still_ hated it, that pessimist.

"There, all done!" Liz said triumphantly. "_Someone's _going to think you look hot!"

"What?" she asked sharply, whirling on her with narrowed eyes. If she was going to make another joke . . . "What are you talking about?"

"Well, maybe you can impress a certain guy tonight," the older girl said with a waggle of her eyebrows. She leaned back and admired her handiwork. Maka's hair was straight over her eyes and around her face, but the back was curled. It was a mix between being elegant and regular and that of someone who had just been murdered – just the right mix to look good. Maka thanked Liz, albeit glaring at the innuendo, standing up from the stool in the bathroom and taking her eyes off of her own figure and costume to observe everyone else's.

The choices surprised her. Tsubaki was dressed in a slim-fitting black one piece, and she had her hair tied back elaborately. She even had the thigh-holsters and the belt around her waist – she was in a costume that was some sort of mix of super-agent and ninja. Whatever it was, it looked kick-butt. Patti had on a crop top and shorts that were red, white and blue, with the star and stripes emblazoned on the front – she was like a girl-Captain America. Her hair was even tucked neatly under a baseball cap with the wings protruding from the sides and the 'A' on the front, and she held a miniature shield in her left hand. When Maka had asked Liz about Patti's choice, she'd revealed that her younger sister was, surprisingly, really into _The Avengers_ and _Marvel_. It seemed out of character for the young bubbly girl, but then Maka remembered all of the explosions in the film and was slightly less surprised. Liz herself wore a tight, female version of a suit, complete with a black tie adorned with little Shinigami skulls. She wore her hair back and sunglasses, and overall looked like the most bad-ass version of a CIA agent that any of the girls had ever seen. The scythe meister was amused to note that both sisters' costumes, despite being different, were perfectly symmetrical.

She beamed at them all – they had all stuck to their promise to not wear anything short and related to devils, nurses, or animals. They didn't need to look like dollymops in order to enjoy their night, now did they? Cool Halloween costumes, as Soul had said, didn't work unless they were out to do more than allow a girl to look like a whore with a reason to. After all, what was so scary about a cat?

Tsubaki grinned at her friends. "Well, is everyone ready to go, then?"

"Yep," Maka confirmed, grabbing her white ballet flats and heading for the door. "Let's go _knock 'em dead."_

_Oh my, what now, the children are asleep,  
But no, there's nothing underneath.  
No ghouls, no witches here to scream and scare them,  
Or ensnare them, only little cosy things secure inside their  
Dreamland . . . What's this?_

__The soul slipped down his throat, quenching his hunger marginally. But no, it was not enough, not _nearly_ enough. He had been locked in that book for so long, just waiting to be freed by someone naive enough to not be wary of a spell book in Death City of all things. The Shinigami had held him captive with his own magic for far too long – he must seek his revenge now, on the 'God's city, while the pickings were fresh and the victims were worth a good scream.

Jeno Vussien pushed the child's corpse aside, grinning at its apparel. She had been dressed as a fairy, by the looks of things, or at least some kind of mockery of a sprite. The young one was probably roaming the streets in search for sweets and trickery, as they all were on this night of the Dead. It made taking his victims easy – nobody would question his looks, his staff or his motives for being out on a night such as this.

As he began to prowl around for another soul to claim for his appetite and his lust for revenge, something caught his eye. Or, more like, it enticed his soul as his demonic variation of Soul Perception alerted him to it. There, in the middle of the City, was a gathering of many souls. All seemed to be young, full of vitality and life, and they were pulsing with different levels of . . . power.

The souls of weapons and meisters.

Jeno checked his sudden rapid walk immediately, sensing the gathering more. It seemed to be right near where . . . _Oh, it couldn't be_.

The Gallows mansion. The home of the one that he had held in such contempt, the one who had ended him and sealed away his soul. The mansion of Shinigami-sama. Jeno did not try to stop the wicked grin that graced his features. He would seek his revenge, find the powerful souls at the mansion, and he would snuff out their life before Shinigami-sama himself, without allowing the Death God time to even comprehend what was happening.

It was all too delicious.

In one movement, the warlock became nothing more than a shadow on the wall, moving inconspicuously closer to the pounding beats and bright lights that were the Halloween party.

_It's a world unlike anything I've ever seen,  
And as hard as I try, I can't seem to describe,  
Like a most improbable dream._

Well, this was certainly _something_.

Maka's eyes were wide as she took in her surroundings; the pounding strobes, the tall speakers and the crush of bodies swarming around the entrance of the manor, stretching further into the house like some great wave, swelling in time to the music. Had Kid had parties before? Yes. Were they sometimes ones that included a lot of people? Yes. Had they ever been anything like this? No.

_Yep,_ she thought, blowing out her breath as she looked up at the tall building, the other girls skipping ahead of her quickly, _this was definitely less the idea of a Shinigami, and more two certain girls that know how to push his buttons._

She saw people left and right as she moved into the great house, her ears suddenly fuzzed as she tried to adjust to the loud volume of the dance tracks playing. Some were students from Shibusen that she knew only by sight, being in the NOT classes or in different levels to her. Others she was more intimately acquainted with; there was Kim by one of the staircases, a red cup in her hand as she whispered something in her partner, Jackie's ear. The girls were both dressed as some sort of mix between a fairy and a dark angel, with red bodices and purple wings that corresponded with each others'. Nearby were Ox and Harvar, one in a full, ridiculous _Batman _suit and the other with a suit on like an agent, to match his sunglasses. Oh, Liz would _not_ be pleased. Kilik's voice was coming over the speakers – he must have been the disc jockey for the night. Maka turned to make a comment on this to her friends behind her, and was surprised to see that they weren't there. Apparently the sea of teenagers had swallowed them all, and they were probably searching for other friends or their partners.

_Maybe I should look for Soul, too_, Maka thought, but she was in no hurry. Despite him whining and carrying on about having to come, she knew he'd keep his word. If she tried hard enough, she might even be able to sense his soul in this crowd – but without him there to strengthen her Perception, all of the students in here would make it too difficult to pinpoint any one person.

As she stepped over what appeared to be a fake coffin, having escaped the tidal current of people, she observed the interior decoration of the house. There was no denying that she was impressed, despite it being Kid throwing this party. It was like nothing she'd ever seen.

The first thing to note was that everything was obviously symmetrical. Coffins were positioned to the same angle against every wall, and they were draped with an even amount of cobwebs. These also hung from the ceiling, the great chandelier's lights being swarmed in it as they shone red by some mysterious filter. There were miscellaneous objects also, such as a severed arm on a table (at each end, of course), Shinigami skulls on the roof and walls, and a blood-splattered clear film spread over one of the white lounges, making it look like the blood was actually on it. Only knowing Kid's tendencies toward cleanliness stopped Maka from believing it was real. The costumes people wore were incredible, to say the least. Nobody ever went for a half-hearted attempt in Death City, so the detail of the outfits was great. Everybody seemed to be dressed as something else, be it haunting, hot or hilarious. There were a lot of cat ears and nurse caps in the sea of partiers, but, Maka sighed, what else could be expected?

As she noted all of this, she couldn't help but feel her curiosity spark. What would the boys be wearing, and what was Soul's costume? They hadn't spoken to each other about their evening's apparel, both preferring to be surprised on the night. Plus, it made the both of them harder to pick out among the crowd. If Maka peered out from her place over the dancing masses just enough, gazing through the opened double doors into the ballroom just across from the entrance room where people were gathered to mingle –

Yes, there was the blue hair. That was Black*Star, kicking his legs around and pumping the air with his fist up near the disc jockey station. He was wearing a white toga and gold leaves in his hair, in a surprisingly good costume. Of course, he was being a God. _Typical_, Maka thought with an eye-roll. Tsubaki was near him, holding a plate for him and smiling. Near them were Liz and Patti, both dancing with people that were unfamiliar to the scythe-meister, but enjoying themselves either way as they wildly moved their bodies around in an almost indecent way for any other scene.

They were something else, those Thompsons.

If she peered harder, around the Spartoi members and strangers, she could see Kid speaking with Kilik up at the station itself. She had been right in supposing him to be a DJ. Kid was wearing an amusingly symmetrical ensemble of black pants and shirt, a skeleton print applied precisely. He even had the dark circles painted around his eyes. Kilik looked like he had come as Superman.

So, if there were all her other friends, where was Soul? She had honestly expected him to be with Black*Star or Kid, either making a snide comment or standing back and laughing as the other made a fool of himself. She didn't suppose he would be dancing – this music wasn't his beloved jazz, or his rigorous classic, or even the punk that he enjoyed. It was more her style – computer generated beats that could get anyone moving. Anyone except a certain stubborn scythe boy, anyway.

Had he really – chickened out? Decided it wasn't worth his time and not shown up? She'd been so sure that he would be here, because he said he would, and he didn't tell lies to her when it was something important. Then again, he could have been against being so close to all of these people, and made the decision to skip out. Or . . . or he could be with another girl or something. Everyone at Shibusen was here, so surely if he liked someone he could be hanging with _them _right now.

Maka stopped perusing the crowd immediately, turning her head and focussing on something else – the punch bowl. She didn't want to have negative thoughts like this. Soul or no Soul, she would enjoy this party tonight. It had been her pact not to let him and his negativity or status as her partner, friend and nothing more get in the way of something as cherished as a Halloween party. Liz had been saying all afternoon that it was the perfect night for them to – express their feelings, although she hadn't put it like _that, _since she'd be all dolled up. She disagreed. It was a night for frights and fun, not worrying about platonic relationships and things like that.

"Hey, Maka, you look awesome!" she heard from somewhere beside her, her head snapping up as she loaded a red cup with tropical punch. It was Kim, her pink hair wild and her wings already slightly bent from dancing among the massive crowd. "How did you do your make-up?"

"Magic," Maka joked, and the witch girl joined in with her laugh. "Nice costume, too. You and Jackie look great with your matching colours. When did you get here?"

"A while ago, we've been dancing for ages! Have you seen Ox tonight?"

"Uh, yeah, he's in a _Batman_ get up, isn't he?"

Kim moaned and nodded. "If he's going to insist on following me around all night, then he could at least wear something decent to be seen in! Like a business man, or a CEO, or - !"

"You just like them because they're rich men, am I right?"

"Oh, _yeah_," the pink-haired girl grinned, lightly hitting Maka's arm. "So, where's your date for the evening then?"

"Date?"

Kim sighed and elaborated. "You know? Tall-ish, spiky white hair, red eyes, constant bad mood and facial expression like the world is pissing him off?"

"_Soul?_" she replied, slightly shocked at the word _date_ being used to describe him, but amused to no end that Kim had referred to his usually irritated demeanour in such a way. "I don't know. He and I didn't even come at the same time, let alone together."

Kim cocked her head to the side. "Weird. I would have thought for sure, tonight of all nights . . ." When she saw Maka's expression darkening with ire, her mind spinning back to Liz's jabs, she wisely changed topic. "Oh, I love this song! Come and dance with me, we'll have all the boys throwing their wallets just to see what we have!"

Slightly disturbed by this description of Kim's dancing, she tried to decline, but the witch already had a firm grip on her wrist and began to tug her through the masses toward the ball room of the manor, which had been set up as the dance space. People were already jumping to the beats that Kilik let seep from the speakers, their arms rose in the air and their heads tipped back as they enjoyed the stress-free release of a party. Kim darted through the people as they danced, getting to a good spot in the middle of the room. Once there, she began to join in with the surrounding crowd, getting right into the song. Maka, however, didn't immediately join in with the partiers, despite also liking the song on track. As she had been pulled in, she had seen something and felt it on the edge of her Soul Perception, almost like a beacon flicker . . .

A flash of red and white, and a chord ringing through her – Soul.

But when she had turned her head, she had seen nothing, just more of the students from other classes or her own that she was unfamiliar with.

She was fairly anxious to find out if he had indeed kept his promise and attended, so she was on the lookout. When Kim had her back turned, dancing with some guy from Crescent Moon that she thought might have been a Demon Naginata; she slipped away and made her way once more to the edges of the crush. She had told herself that she wouldn't spend the night thinking of him, and now she was a sight to be looked at, stopping herself from enjoying even a dance track just to try and catch a glimpse of white hair.

She left the dance area, hurrying as she heard Black*Star call out to her to come and join his 'Godly mosh', and skimmed the buffet areas for him. He wasn't at either of the two large tables lining the dining hall walls, nor hanging around near the two big punch stations in the front room. If he was here, then he must be either off with someone else, or moping around outside because of the size of this get-together. Maka had to admit, Kid had really outdone himself this time - !

And then she got the sudden urge to turn, her Soul Perception telling her that there was someone, a soul so strong, right behind her. She spun around, and there, leaning against the wall, he was.

_Like music drifting in the air -  
Invisible, but everywhere._

__Her eyes burned from taking him in, because it was perfect. The entire outfit was just perfect, and she couldn't lift her gaze as she drank it all in.

Soul was dressed in the best, most ironic costume he could have chosen – the Mad Hatter. He wore a red swallow-tail waist coat, vibrant in colour and matching his eyes. She had no idea where he'd gotten it, but it fit in a way that made him look strong and lithe at the same time. It was buttoned with black circular six-sets at the front, and a black silk dress shirt could be seen peeking from the very top collar. He also wore black dress pants to accompany the coat, looking everything like a mix between a fairytale prince and a Victorian gentleman, all accentuated by the blinding white. From his pants pocket hung a fob watch, real or fake she could not tell. And the best thing was the black top hat, perched at a crooked angle over his messy white hair. On the side was the customary card of the Mad Hatter, but it had a 42/42 scrawled on it instead of the regular numbers. He was leaning his back against the wall, one leg supporting on it and the other straight in front of him, with his hands in his black pants pockets, his hat pushing his hair over one eye while the other looked at her, a smirk on his face. She started when she caught his look, and instantly composed herself so as to stop gawking at his impressive costume and somewhat _ridiculously attractive_ appearance.

"Nice," he said, eyeing the gash on her neck that pulsed with a bloody realness under the strobe lights. "Looks like you must have really pissed Blair off for her to do that to you."

She grinned. "Not a bad costume yourself. I have to say, it sort of suits you in an ironic way, you know?"

He laughed, standing easily from the wall. He didn't look to be slouching as he customarily did – it only made the costume work better for him. Maka saw a few girls nearby eyeing him now, ignoring the boys who had previously been claiming their attention. "Well, you got slashed and I went crazy – I'd have to say both of these costumes work pretty well for us, yeah?"

"Definitely. Almost as much as Black*Star's – I thought he'd go for a sheet with eye holes."

"I know, right?" he said with a grin. "You also thought I wouldn't come, didn't you?"

"Wha – no! Of course I knew you'd come, because I know you know I'd Chop you into the next century if you weaselled out," she said challengingly, hiding her blush.

He snorted. "I'm already mad; what are a few hits to the head going to change?"

"You want to find out?" she asked with a cunning smile, and he just rolled his eyes. At that moment, one of her favourite songs began to play, the sound of the heavy machine-like sounds filtering through the houses speakers to a cry of delight from the dancing crowd inside the ballroom. "I love this song!" she exclaimed, turning back to Soul to force him to come and dance with her . . .

And stopped short. He had been right beside her a moment ago, and now there was nothing but the empty air. She gawked – how would he have gotten away that quickly? There had only been a few seconds where her eyes were off him, weren't there? He couldn't just vanish into thin air like that, could he? It was like he had taken on the insane abilities of his costume, disappearing with the music into the surrounding party. She craned her neck over the wall of bodies, but that flash of red didn't catch her eye again. Maka sighed in disappointment, before suddenly her arm was snatched up.

"Not getting away that easy!" Kim crowed in vicious delight, pulling Maka eagerly toward the dancers. "Come on, Liz and Patti are looking for you! We're all dancing together, Maka, let's go!"

This time, assured that her partner had indeed kept his promise and come, in a confusingly good-looking costume and with a certain amount of holiday cheer, she didn't resist, letting herself get pulled into the flashing lights of the party. She'd see him later.

_Time to give them something fun,  
They'll talk about for years to come,  
Let's have a cheer from everyone!  
It's time to party._

__Soul grinned, leaning on the rails of one of the Gallows Manor's great balconies. Oh, how this was going perfectly according to plan! He'd set himself up for a night's entertainment by, quite frankly, scaring the living Hell out of Maka and confusing her. Whenever she was alone, he would saunter up, unseen and making sure to keep as distanced from her soul wavelength as possible, initiating no resonance. She would demand to know where he kept running off to, he would say he didn't know what she meant, and then he'd hang with her at the party for a while. Hell, he'd even gone out onto the dance floor with her once, because it had been her favourite song and she'd begged and threatened, and said, _'Come on, nobody will notice it's you dancing, Soul, be cool this one time, for me!'_

And then, whenever one of their friends came up to talk to her, he'd disappear, immersing himself in the shadows. When she would look, spinning immediately to try and catch him in the act, he would make sure to hide and hope she didn't see him. So far it was working. What also helped was the fact that he'd made all of his and Maka's friends promise to say that they hadn't seen him with her when they had been approaching. While she was certain she'd been talking to him, her friends' adamant protests were starting to freak her out. Once she was gone again, he'd go hang out with other people, or do what he was doing now, which was chill outside for a while, away from all of the pressure of the mass of people. If Maka had wanted him to attend and have fun, he was doing it. She was getting majorly annoyed and freaked out, and he was enjoying every second of it. It didn't bother him that he had to keep hiding – he'd never been one for parties, even of this type. Something about the great mass of people made him nervous and uncomfortable. Be it his childhood or a natural aversion to groups, he preferred being with his select group of friends, by himself, or best, with Maka.

She really had gone all out with her costume tonight. If he were admitting it to himself, he could easily say that she looked fantastic – but the words would never leave his lips if he was talking _to _her. That was beside the point. He was enjoying seeing her eyes light up in anger or surprise every time she saw him – it was his favourite reason to ambush her so. Call him sad, say he had no life, but he had been surrounded by his meister for so long that finding any way to bring out new quirks in her was amusing.

His amusement slipped, however, as he thought back to what his friend had said to him earlier in the night. As he had been putting the finishing touches on his outfit, making sure that his swallow-tail coat was tucked and his hat was on the right way – because who could tell which way those stupid things went? – Black*Star had swaggered up to him, swinging an arm around his shoulders.

_"So, man, do you think tonight is gonna' be the night?"_

_"For what?" he asked, tipping his hat just perfectly so it sat over one of his eyes, the other glaring at the mirror with a bright red shine._

_Black*Star coughed, and Soul actually turned to face him. The ninja, despite his bold approach, was acting weird. "Well, I mean . . . will tonight be the night where we finally –"_

_"Dude, what the Hell are you on about now?"_

_"Ah – nothing! Never mind, can't wait to see the Godly set up tonight!" the usually boisterous meister said, pushing away and laughing off-key before leaving the room, with Soul only watching with his eyebrows raised._

Well, he knew what his loud-mouth 'bro' had been talking about. For a while, Black*Star had been skirting around the edges of his feelings for his weapon, and he knew Soul had been doing the same. Not for Tsubaki, of course, but for his own partner . . .

"Well, are you not very festively dressed for this fine evening?"

Soul's head snapped up and he looked over the balcony to the pavement below. Standing on the cobblestones, his dark hair blowing back in the breeze and his hands poised neatly over his mahogany cane, was a man. He was regarding the Death Scythe with a cool amusement, his head cocked slightly to the side. Soul couldn't quite figure out if the guy was dressed in a Halloween costume, or whether he was just some weird dude walking around at night, but something about him was definitely creepy.

Still, he bowed his head, even tipping his hat with his right hand in a gesture fitting for his costume. Why not? He may as well join in the festive mood, right? "Thanks. Are you out for the holiday cheer or just the night air?"

"Neither," said the man cryptically, running his hands over the head of the cane slowly, a light and handsome smile on his face. "I'm merely sating my hunger."

_Creepy_, Soul affirmed, feeling goosebumps prickle under his red coat. "That's . . . great. So what are you doing out in these lots? There's a party going on here, as you can probably see, and there are a heap of people on the other side of the building." He was leaning on one of the rails facing the alleyways, rather than the street. "There'd be better light to go find a restaurant or something."

"But I don't want anything a mere restaurant could provide."

"Uh – what?"

The strange man's smile grew, until it was almost a grin. "It's amusing, is it not? Death is tightly reigning over you on all nights but the one rightfully belonging to him. And it is on this night that he may have wished to have been more guarded."

Soul took an involuntary step back. Something about this smile and predatory gaze was giving him a feeling akin to that of a tainted soul on a mission – he should be working out how to kill this thing. So, he made his mind up quickly; he'd retreat and leave this weirdo to whatever it was he wanted to do on his Thursday night. "Well, thanks for that bit of philosophy, I'll be sure to let Kid – uh, I mean, Shinigami-sama, know and I'll check he gets the message. Nice talking to you, man, but I gotta' get back to the party . . ."

"'_Kid'_? Surely that doesn't – has Shinigami-sama fallen?"

Soul paused in his backing away. "Where have you been, man? Shinigami's son has been in rule for the past year and a half; since the sealing of Kishin Asura on the moon, remember?"

The man paused, stroking the cane once more. "Interesting. So Death fell, much like the mortals he loved to govern. Tell me, are you well-acquainted with this new ruler? You speak as if you know him personally."

_Do you not read the papers?_ Soul thought irately. He'd had to do enough interviews with the damn Death God regarding Asura's fall and becoming the Last Death Scythe. Was this guy living under a rock in his spare time? " . . . Yeah, we're friends. We were kids together, starting a couple years back - !"

"Ah, that will do finely then," said the stranger, a hand cupping his chin in thought. "Should I not be able to extract my revenge on Death, I shall have to settle for his fragment son. It would be tempting, devouring the souls of all of these adolescents, but with such forces prepared as Shibusen can surely offer, that may be unwise. However, should I choose to take a dear friend of the ruler, I can only imagine how I may seek my revenge. Yes, this will be much more fun – much more enjoyable! Instead of the feast, let us have the show! If you want a party, Death," he called to the great house now, "I'll give you one."

Through all this, Soul had been getting more and more convinced that this was not an enjoyer of Halloween, but something much more serious. Without consciously doing so, he summoned a sickle blade from his right arm, morphing it just enough to avoid tearing his coat. The man's eyes narrowed as he saw the weapon brandished at him.

"You think to threaten me, boy?"

"You think you're gonna' capture me or some shit, weirdo? I don't know what kind of crap you're spouting about taking revenge, but if I got you right, you want to kidnap me, yeah? Well, sorry, but I'm not cool with that."

He was preparing to fight even as the cane began to glow green and the man's eyes shone. It was like the light hit him as a physical blow would, and he stumbled back unwittingly. Only one thought crossed his mind – _What the Hell?_ – and then he was falling, flying, down, down, down, and the man smiled again as he, as everything went black.

_This is Halloween.  
Everybody scream._

* * *

**"Everybody's Waiting For The Next Surprise Which Is Actually That This Is A Two Part Story And It's Huge."**

**Yes, there will be a second half to this. Have no fear. **


	2. 2 - Throw Away The Key

_**A/N: **__Part Two! _

_I do not own Soul Eater or Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, scored by Danny Elfman and directed by Henry Selick._

_I don't celebrate Halloween (in rural Australia, it's not really a big thing, because we don't celebrate it to as much of an extent over here. Where I live, there isn't enough people). I've never even been trick-or-treating, and I dressed up for the first time this year. As Death City would be so into Halloween, I winged it from what I assumed and what I've seen in movies about the event. Sorry if it doesn't seem accurate, I tried!_

_The music may double up more as I reach the end of the film's content. _

_Swearing, as per usual, so caution. _

_Enjoy._

* * *

**EVERYBODY SCREAM  
**by Lisp.

_Lock him up real tight.  
Throw away the key and then,  
Turn off all the lights._

Dark.

Dark and cold.

What was that? A thick, repetitive noise. Was it – dripping? Yes. Water dripping.

Dark and cold, with dripping water.

There was another sound, accompanied by an ache of the shoulders. It was a kind of clink, from . . . chains. So he was being held in chains, in a dark, cold room with dripping water accompanying him. Soul blinked twice tiredly, trying to make out anything around him besides the inky black of shadows. He had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there, but upon waking up from the strange sleep he had fallen into, he had discovered these facts.

_When the fuck did I fall asleep? _he wondered groggily, trying in vain to tug his wrists out of the spread-eagling chain grip. He couldn't really remember anything that had happened to get him in this position, but the only thing he could come up with was that somehow, someone had spiked the punch at Kid's party and now they were playing a prank on him.

_Yeah, that must be it,_ he pondered grouchily. That would explain why his head hurt so badly. But where the Hell had they taken him, and how had they chained him to a wall without him waking? It must have been some strong stuff. He didn't drink – because drinking only to ride a motorcycle and then wreck was not cool at all – so he knew that he wouldn't get drunk at the party. Besides, Maka would have kicked his ass if he had. So that meant the punch must have had whatever crazy stuff had done this, and it must have been drugged before he'd drank any . . .

Wait. He froze, his arms no longer rattling the chains. His arms and head may have hurt, and he may have been dazed from the odd comatose state, but thinking back, he was certain of one thing.

_He hadn't had any punch for the whole night._

So if he hadn't been drugged as part of a party prank . . . How had he gotten here? The last thing Soul could remember was going outside to get some fresh air on the balcony. People had been in weird costumes, and there was one guy in a _really_ stupid one, with a cane and everything.

A cane that had glowed green when he had threatened to take him, to spite Kid over his father's condemning acts.

Soul sat bolt upright, the fob watch in his suit pants pocket sliding down to the floor with a dull clang, his heart beating fast.

_Oh, shit._

_Lock him up for ninety years,  
See what makes him tick._

She sighed into her can of lemonade, blowing bubbles with her straw and watching with dull satisfaction as the liquid fizzed up only to quieten again. For the first half an hour, she had remained hopeful that since she was alone, he would show up again. After forty-five minutes, however, that optimism had begun to fade. Now she was torn between upset and just down-right _annoyed_.

Not only had Soul been weaving around all night, appearing only when she was by herself and never being seen by anyone but herself – which was doing her head in, because no matter what she did, nobody seemed to agree that he'd been talking to her – but now it seemed as if he were just simply _gone_. He'd agreed to drive them both home at eleven o'clock. It was now almost one in the morning and she was far past impatient. Only the most rowdy guests remained, and they were almost all passed out. Kim and Ox had crashed on the bloody sofa rather near each other, with Jackie dozing on a cushion on the floor and Harvar leaning against the wall watching it all with a cold, quiet and calculated amusement. Kilik was still here somewhere too, possibly watching a movie or hunting down something to eat. Other than that, there were only a few kids she didn't know, and Kid with the Thompsons, who had gone to bed at twelve so as to wake at eight with exactly eight hours sleep. Some people never changed.

Maka had watched all of these people fall asleep or become disinterested with partying, all the while waiting for her ride home. When he hadn't come at the specified time, she had waited, because she needed him to drive and didn't want to walk and leave him there. His motorbike was still out the front of the mansion, as he had driven over here earlier when she was getting ready with the girls. Liz had driven everyone back from the apartment to here, so she was relying on her stupid partner to convey her home. And where was he? Death knows where.

She sat and fumed, her arms crossed. She could just walk home, or ask Kid to stay a night in the mansion, but she was adamant on waiting for her stupid scythe to reappear so that she could kick the living _shit_ out of him at as early a time as possible. Although, with how tired she was, walking really seemed like a good idea now. At least then she could lock him out of their home for a good while until he brought her enough gifts at the door to convey an apology. The bastard could sleep in the stairwell, for all she cared.

And they had been having such a good night, too! Well, at least _she _thought so. He'd teased her, baited her and been her companion in lonely times throughout the entire evening, seeming to be a friend to nobody else but herself, as nobody else had seen him. Hell, Maka thought bitterly, he had even _danced_ with her, and smiled when he did as if he were enjoying being in her presence in such an atmosphere. The disappearances, although tedious when she tried to work out how he slipped past the notice of everyone else, were thrilling in themselves as all of his behaviour added to the Halloween mood that she was in. It was a mystery – she never caught him slinking away. But now, all of her high spirits and flattery at the attention aimed solely at her had waned down to sadness and anger. He had left her here to rot two hours after he was meant to drive her home, and she had _no idea_ where he was.

Her Soul Perception told her that he was not at the Gallows Manor, or nearby. Despite his bike's position, he wasn't there to drive it. Maka had spent a while trying to figure out how he could have gotten anywhere without it, before vicious and unpleasant ideas had sprung to mind. She'd taken back up her previous hobby of torturing herself by picturing him being off with other girls. Only this time, he did not show up to ease her worries. With every passing minute, she got more and more anxious, and more and more depressed.

Maybe she should just crash in one of the spare rooms in the mansion. It would be better than getting her hopes up that her useless partner would remember that _oh, yeah, Maka's still waiting for you in Kid's living room because you made a promise to drive her home_. This was the attitude her father held, not her weapon. But apparently, Halloween had turned Soul into something she _did_ fear – an unreliable person.

She was standing slowly, getting ready to swallow her pride, when someone rushed up to her frantically. It took a few blinks for her tired brain to register Kid, still in silk black pyjamas with neat rows of skulls on them, his hair – no, it was still neat despite his obviously being in bed. She stared in bewilderment – to see Kid in something as mundane as _pyjamas_ was plain odd, and her eyes couldn't quite believe that they were really seeing the God of Death, on the night of Hallows Eve in which the dead rose and his practice was sacred, in _jammies._

But then he started to speak, and all of her previous cognition on absorbing his weird appearance was forgotten. His voice was rushed and he sounded worried, which was rare for his usual smooth tone.

"Maka! You're still here? Good, I was worried I would have to send Liz over to fetch you. We have to act immediately, there's no time to waste! Do you have a change of clothes on you? Otherwise we may have to stop by your apartment before we go. As little time as can be wasted should be employed in any other tasks," he said quickly. "Why are you just staring at me? We have to go!"

"Slow down, Kid!" she exclaimed. Shinigami-sama or not, all of their group would forever call him 'Kid' as a sign of affection and acknowledgement that despite him being a God, they would always see him as a friend. "What the Hell are you talking about, where are we going? Do you know what _time_ it is?"

"One twenty-four in the morning," he said as if the information didn't matter. "And what do you mean, 'where'? We have to go and get him back before it's too late! How are you not more worried?"

At his tone and words, her heart began to pound with dread, but she kept her voice even as she replied, "I don't know what you're talking about. Can you start at the beginning?"

The Shinigami started, as if it should be obvious. "Wh – Soul, of course! Surely you heard?" At her puzzled and now increasingly worried look, he continued tightly, "Soul – has been taken by a warlock. He is being held captive."

"W – what?" Surely she'd heard wrong. She had to have – right? There was no way Kid just said . . . Said that . . .

Kid now looked very hesitant, and his eyes held a pity that Maka did not like one bit. It was like he was now fearful to give her the news. He opened his mouth to confirm the statement, and Maka was shaking slightly due to the shock and ludicrousness of it all, but then Liz and Patti were coming down the great stairs into the room, dressed and ready to go with Liz's long tresses tied back. They looked at Kid questioningly as if wondering why he wasn't already dressed.

"Liz? Patti?" Maka asked quietly, suddenly feeling her head spin. This had to be a Halloween prank, right? But none of them were cracking a secret smile or trying not to laugh. They looked tense and ready to go on a mission, which was not a good sign. Kid put both hands into his silk pyjama shirt, reaching into his central breast pocket – always the symmetrical perfectionist – and drew out a crisp piece of lined white paper. It was written on in burgundy ink in what looked like a spiralling, sharp and narrow handwriting. She took it with weak hands, and Liz's eyes flicked onto her with shock and pity as she too realised the situation.

The writing was blurred with her sudden spinning eyes and she quivered as she brought it up to her eyes to read. Soul hadn't been taken. He was being an ass, off Death knows where, maybe with someone else, giving her a reason to bring her full ire onto him. They had to be pulling her leg, all of them did. Soul had been playing tricks on her all night. This had to be one. And yet she didn't recognise the handwriting as she perused the letter.

* * *

_**God of Death, prepare to witness it.**_

_You may not even recognise my name if you hear it. I am Jeno Vussien. Do you quake with fear? I think not. It was not you who became my sworn enemy those years ago. It was your father. I have missed my chance to gain revenge on the being that sealed me away in my own spell book, so I will take it out on you. It may seem unfair, but isn't life unfair? You are a Shinigami. You must know. Now, I have taken something of yours, as your father took my freedom. Instead of merely telling you where I have put it, I'll join in with the holiday cheer of Hallows Eve and make it a game. Your father liked riddles. Do you?_

_A scythe whose music plays songs of the dark is in a place that sees no light. The dead will greet on their night of freedom, and it is there that you must fight. The golden rays will signify the end of two, a time and a love both dear to you. So play the game of Hallows Eve, and to all, a good night!_

* * *

For a long moment she merely stayed frozen, her lips caught between her teeth as her advanced mind put together the pieces of the riddle.

'A scythe whose music plays the songs of the dark' – obviously, they had taken Soul. Her Soul. 'In a place that sees no light', and 'The dead will greet' – that must be somewhere that was not heavily populated, and was perpetually dark . . . so, Hook Cemetery? The place was renowned for its shady spots and ominous feeling, and it held the bodies of meisters and weapons past. That must be the location. 'The golden rays will signify the end of two – a time and a love', was referring to the end of the game, and worse, the end of _Soul's life_. 'To all, a good night' – wasn't that from _Christmas?_ Well, she hadn't worked that bit out yet. But the main factors were there.

After the five seconds it took for all of this information to be processed, her hand loosened its grip on the paper, and she was running before Kid could get in another word.

_It's much more fun, I must confess,  
With lives on the line.  
Not mine, of course, but yours, old boy,  
Now that would be just fine._

It was about an hour into his conscious confinement that the blackness in Soul's cell was pierced. He had been mulling over ways to escape, his strategic brain spitting out possible plans that were instantly scrapped due to his now-raw wrists and burning shoulders, when a light had suddenly appeared in his sea of darkness. The torch had sprung to life without so much as a sputter of flames, and being as close to his manacles on the wall as it was, it not only blinded him momentarily but gave his hand sudden warmth that he wished the rest of his body could share. He looked warily looking around him at his cell – which really did not look that much _like_ a cell, if he were honest. It was made of stone bricks, granite in colour, neatly stacked. He was chained by long coils sunk deep into the stone at the wall opposite the door, and the floor looked almost as if it were . . . black marble? The door, too, was not fitting for a cell. It was not barred, nor was it thick metal with an eye-slit like they appeared in the movies. It was rich mahogany, and had a heavy brass doorknob. He took in all of this, believing that he was in some sort of weird room, but it was all quickly overlooked when he saw the tables on the far sides of the room opposite the door. They were symmetrically aligned – Kid's influence had _really_ rubbed off on them all for him to notice – and covered in black candles and small bowls, among flowers and books. It looked like a mix between a witch's lair and some sort of . . . shrine? These pieces were all rather ornate, and there were Shinigami masks on the table as well. And – was that a _lectern _on the left side of each table? Soul swallowed and looked above him, not knowing what to expect. There were four prongs protruding from the roof in a square-ish shape, with a thick slab of metal joining them all pressed against the ceiling. He stared in surprise. _What in Death's name . . . _

The doorhandle gave a loud creak as it turned and his gaze instantly shot forward again, his breath held as the door began to swing open ominously. _Now _this _is more like a scene from a scary movie_, he thought absently, _even if the set's all wrong. _

He peered at the shadows that gathered at the door – it must have still been night outside – before a darker silhouette stepped from them. Immediately, another torch began to illuminate the room. The intruder dropped their hand lazily, a smile on their face, and Soul felt his stomach clench.

"Ah, so you've made yourself at home, then – Soul, is it?" Jeno Vussien asked in a mockingly host-like and polite voice, eyeing the bloodied skin around the Death Scythe's manacles and the way that the chains looked twisted from excessive force. "How long did you pull at them before you realised that ripping your arms off was not going to work as an escape plan?"

Soul wanted to yell back a witty reply or some sort of death threat, but at the last moment his inner voice of reason – which sounded a lot like Maka's snappish tone – told him to keep his mouth shut, so he took to hostilely glaring at the man before him.

Jeno raised his brows. "Self-restraint, I see? Well, they must not raise weapons and meisters as they once did. There was a time where you would have been intelligent enough to send back a biting remark of your own. No matter. The age of warlocks was long ago, in any case."

"_Warlocks?_" he exclaimed, unable to help himself.

"Yes," his captor said with a bland smile. "Warlocks. Powerful beings with magical tendencies, but not the sway of magic that captivates witches? The predecessor of all other mage-beings, offspring of mated humans and demons? The most powerful force to rule this planet under Shinigami himself, at the time of his fathoming the idea of creating Demon Weaponry such as yourself?" At Soul's astonished silence, he gave a short chuckle in his suave tone, shaking his head. "My, what do they teach in schools these days?"

"So – you're a warlock, then," Soul said, trying to regain his cool. "If what you're saying is true, and I've never heard of such _shit_, then you must've all died out a while back, yeah?"

Jeno narrowed his eyes. "Correct."

"Then, if I _may ask_," he said in a tone of heavy irony, "what the _fuck_ are you doing walking around on Halloween, if you're meant to be dead?"

"Don't you know that on All Hallows Eve, the _dead rise?_ Your mentality is almost lowering before my eyes, boy."

"Don't give me that crap. How'd you get up and start walking around again? I know a zombie, and he doesn't look anything like you do."

The warlock's lip curled, and he seized up the one book on the left table that did not seem to have a counterpart on the other, creating the mysterious Kid-like symmetrical balance of the room once again. "For an idiotic weapon, you _are_ curious. And bad-mouthed. But, if you must know, I was summoned from my confinement. Shinigami bound me seven centuries ago to my tome," he said, hefting the heavy book, "for my direct defilement of his beloved meisters and weapons. I influenced them with magic to attempt switching their loyalties, but found that it merely corrupted their souls and ruined their ability to resonate or hold a constant wavelength. Such distortion destroyed their souls completely within five or so hours."

Soul shivered heavily, his mouth drying, as he spat out, "That's _disgusting_."

Jeno nodded primly. "Quite. Such a binding _was_ not honourable in the slightest. However, I'm seeking my revenge now, so everything shall be in order."

"That's not what I meant – and why are you taking revenge for through _me?_ The Shinigami-sama you knew is _dead_, and he probably didn't give two shits about me. Kid hasn't done anything wrong to you, and I'm not even his weapon! Hell, using me against Kid probably isn't gonna' have much more effect than against the original Shinigami-sama!"

"Such a noisy boy."

"I'll yell if I want to," he said, and then bit back, cringing when he reminded himself of Black*Star. He needed to be reasonable and gain more information. "What're you planning? If you're trying to get them to come and fetch me like some hostage, that's a dumb-ass plan. You fought a Death God before when you got trapped, yeah? Remember how that ended up for you?"

Jeno flipped through his book with gentle hands, a half-smile on his face, and Soul could tell he didn't even really care what he was saying. But then the warlock laughed, and he cringed. "Do you really think that all I intend to do is hold you here? Your listening skills must be regrettable at best."

"You sound like my meister," he said bitterly. "And you haven't said shit about what you're planning. Just some old history about what you are, why you're pissed at the world, etcetera."

"Exactly. And the key is right there. What time is it, do you think?"

"No idea. You knocked me out, remember?"

"Ah, yes," and the magic-user's lips quirked even higher in his smile. "Well, for your information, it is about one-fifteen in the morning. Do you know what time the sun rises in Nevada during October to November?"

"Uh . . ."

"Six-fifteen, on average," he said drily, a flick of his wrist moving yet another page. He reached with slim fingers to flick hair from his eyes, and Soul noted with a dry throat that the pages kept flipping anyway. "Now, does that tell you anything of my plan?"

The Death-Scythe coughed, shifting to try and let his aching shoulders rest their wait to no avail. Jeno saw it with a chuckle. "That you like astronomy? I don't fucking know!"

"It means, that there are _five good hours_ between now and when the Shinigami has been informed is the limit of time to find your miserable corpse, at the sunrise," Jeno Vussien said in a voice expressing his glee at the situation. Soul's blood suddenly ran cold. "The perfect amount of time for your soul to be corrupted beyond recognition, and eradicated completely, by which time I should not need to be near, but rather relaxing as your friends find you."

"You – you bastard! You wouldn't!"

"Ah, but I would. I do rather enjoy these little games of mine, if I am honest. Everything they need to know regarding your location and their time limit was written into a riddle. Should your God – and your meister, for I assume she will become involved – be as dim as you, well, then, I should be kissing goodbye the throes of life if I were in your shoes."

"_Don't you –" _Soul roared in panic, but he could do nothing but thrash against the harsh grip of the manacles and kick at the floor to back up as Jeno found the right page of the spell book, reading a few words in a high clear voice. His feet left the ground and his eyes began to glow eerily. He extended his right hand, and from it, his heavy cane slid out of his sleeve like some sort of Mary-Poppins act. It, too, was glowing, and the warlock let a grin stretch over his handsome face.

"_Selanió des ctrathé limitreythus!"_ he cried, and then there was a blinding white pain in Soul's chest, one that made him buck forward as a feral cry slid up his throat, unable to be uttered. It was like Crona was once more before him, the Demon Sword at the ready to slice him to pieces once more, but it was _inside_ of him. His soul – it was burning. He remembered dimly thinking something along the lines of this once, _'So burn, my soul'_, but never like this. This was agony, and the cry finally let itself be known as he slumped forward, his shoulders screaming in time with his voice as his chest exploded in more of the flame that would not die down.

The warlock gave a cold laugh which was barely heard over the sound of his own pain, but the words he said next into his ear were unmistakeable, no matter how much Soul thrashed, his breathing heavy and his eyes shut tightly as the taste of blood began to fill his mouth.

"Happy Hallows Eve, _Evans_."

The words were echoed by the gravelly, harsh voice in the back of his mind as the Oni he had come to accept as a part of himself clutched his wineglass tightly, sitting on top of the piano. The red Imp watched a key crack with slumped shoulders and closed eyes. _"We're done now, Evans."_

That was the last thing his conscious mind could hear before he collapsed in on himself, and all was red and white.

_The worst is just around the bend,  
And does he notice my feelings for him,  
And will he see, how much he means to me?  
I think it's not to be._

Maka clutched the piece of paper tightly in her hand as she ran down the winding path towards Hook Cemetery. Ahead of her she could see Black*Star already busting through the gates. Kid had made the wise decision to send the assassin meister with Maka to bust up his kidnapper with brute force while she got her partner back, instead of going himself. As Shinigami-sama, he could not attend the fight without appropriately alerting Death Scythe. As well as this, he needed to gain information on Jeno Vussien, whoever he may be, to send back to them so they knew what they were up against.

"Come on, Maka, hurry your slow ass up!" Black*Star yelled as he used Tsubaki to swing another set of latches onto the gate, her kusarigama blades shining under the moonlight. "Soul's here, isn't that what you said? We gotta' find him, it's already, like, nearly two o'clock!"

"Shut up, I _know!_" she bit back angrily as she rushed through the gates, her eyes narrowed. She was worried out of her mind, and Black*Star's arrogant shouting was not helping the matter at all. Soul was gone. _Soul_. Her Soul, her partner, her scythe, her idiot, _her Soul was gone!_ Somebody had taken him away. She'd always feared that this day would come, that he would leave her, but it would not happen through someone else! She refused to let him go this easily.

"We need to split up and search all of the potential places he could be," she said in a quick voice, her eyes already scanning the area for any big tombs. "Kid agrees that this has to be the place, so as long as we look quickly, there shouldn't be any trouble in finding him." She looked down at the paper again once more to be certain. _'A place that sees no light. The dead will greet. There that you must fight.' _This had to be the place, there was no doubting it.

"Why can't you just use your Human-Radar trick and find him straight away?" Black*Star asked with narrowed eyes. He was trying to seem unconcerned for her sake, but she could see the way his hands tensely gripped Tsubaki's handles and the downturn of his mouth. Soul was his best friend too, as much as Maka was reluctant to admit that anybody but herself should be able to claim Soul right now. He was stressed, just like her, only to a lesser degree.

She clenched her jaw. "I _told _you, it's _not working!_ I can't sense him! Whoever's taken him must have found a way to mask his wavelength or something, because I can pick up on everything but him just fine!"

The assassin paled. "You don't think . . ."

"No," she said firmly, and turned her back on him. She wouldn't even let herself think about that for a second – not a _second_. Soul couldn't be – his wavelength couldn't have been completely taken for _that_ reason. It had crossed her mind when Kid had first said that he couldn't feel Soul's essence at all, and had doubled in intensity when she'd realised that she couldn't either, no matter how hard she tried. The most common reason a wavelength disappeared was because its owner . . . was no more. But that hadn't happened to Soul. It couldn't have.

There were too many things she had to tell him first.

Like how she liked it when he had just woken up and hadn't put the Pomade in his hair yet, and it was dishevelled and fell around his cheeks. How his laugh made her shiver sometimes, and that she liked nothing better, not even her books, than curling up on the couch with him after a long and bad day to watch classic _Looney Tunes_ re-runs until all of her pains were forgotten. The way that him cooking dinner for her in his apron was the cutest thing she was sure she would ever see, and the fact that she'd probably fallen in love with him about two years ago.

He had to know that because of him, she'd begun to trust again. She'd smiled more, let people in more, and gone from a good meister to a _great partner_, and she'd even started to have her faith restored in love again, _all because of him_. He'd dropped into her life with his snarky grin and his stupid 'cool' ideals, and improved it in a way she'd never thought possible. He was cool, he'd always been cool, he was everything, she needed him, she _loved him_ – and she had to tell him all of it.

As well as Chop the living _fuck _out of him for making her worry this bad.

Maka grit her teeth and started towards one of the more sized tombs, looking old and perfect for holding someone, as she heard Black*Star use Tsubaki's katana blade to cut locks on the mausoleum at the side of the cemetery plots.

She would find Soul, hit him, scream at him, hug him, kiss him right on the mouth, and then lock him up so that he would never be able to scare her like this again. But first she had to find him. So, without further ado, she kicked in the lock on the tomb's iron fencing , a determined grin stretching across her lips as it shattered under her foot.

_What have I done?  
What have I done?  
How could I,  
Be so blind?_

Kid stared at the book before him with clenched hands, his eyes wide, ignoring Liz's questions of what was wrong from behind him. He could not tear his gaze from the curled letters on the page, the words that they made up, and the information was being _burned_ into his brain with every passing second.

It could not be. There was no way.

He had skipped Shibusen's library and gone straight to the most reliable source of information – tomes and records by his father himself. He had to find something on Jeno Vussien, for the name was unfamiliar to both him and Maka, and that was not a good sign. The man – it must have been a man, due to the handwriting on the photocopied note he had before him – had written with such a passionate hatred and need for revenge directed at the Shinigami and at him, the current Death God, that there was no mistaking he had been known to his father. But how? The mysterious captor had said something about his freedom being taken by Honourable Father, but he, Kid, had never heard about it. This gave him a good indication of when to search the records – around eight or seven centuries ago, after the birth of Demon Weapons, when the former Shinigami had been so secretive.

It had taken him, Liz and Patti, almost three hours of searching, which was far too long despite there being almost seven cabinets of information to search through, before he had stumbled on what looked like a copied version of a journal, bound in a leather book. He had flicked through, his shock mounting when he'd realised that this particular tome referred to warlocks. There was one in particular that this recount of events and photocopied compilation of spell book sheets highlighted – Jeno Vussien.

The person who had taken Soul was a _warlock_. And that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was what he had done.

"Did you find something?" Liz asked impatiently, laying her well-manicured hand on his shoulder and peering over it down at what he was so fixedly staring at. "Is that – _there are warlocks?_"

"Were," he corrected in a troubled voice. "Father extinguished them completely seven centuries ago. They were extremely powerful, but not as destructive by nature as witches. Their cunning and desire to do wrong stem from the fact that they were half human, half demon. They had all of the spite of humankind, coupled with the abilities and natural wickedness of demons. It took my father a century and a half to completely eradicate all of the warlocks – they were far superior in power to weapons, meisters, and even Death Scythes. It took work from Eibon's magic itself, as well as the power of a Death God's wavelength, to purify their magic."

"What do warlocks have to do with Soul's disappearance?" Liz asked, her nails digging into his suit and skin and her jaw clamped in sudden worry. "He hasn't – one of _them_ doesn't have him, does it? They've all died out!"

"The dead come back on Halloween, sis!" Patti exclaimed, having come over to them after learning that they had found something. "Could one have come back, all zombie-like? Sid did, right?"

"Not quite like that, Patti," Kid said, "but you're right. Jeno Vussien was a warlock, one of the last Father destroyed. He was sealed inside his own spell book to atone for his crimes. He . . ."

"What'd he do?" Patti asked, craning over to try and see what the book said, but Liz pushed her back with a shake of the head, not wanting her younger sister to see the horrible things that her eyes skipped over on the page. She felt slightly sick now, having read a few lines about what warlocks were capable of. If they'd done something like that to _Soul_ . . . Maka wouldn't ever be the same.

Kid cleared his throat, his gaze hard. He was only ever this expressively emotional around his partners, unless Black*Star was making him extremely angry or symmetry was on the line, so they listened attentively with baited breath. "He – tried to get meisters and weapons to follow him instead of Shinigami's rule. But his experiments backfired, and instead of creating a spell to change loyalties, he . . . created a piece of dark magic that gave him the ability to destroy a soul's ability to resonate."

"_What?"_

"Something in the soul's wavelength was severed by the magic, and it started to jump. When the wavelength became too erratic, the soul itself became corrupted, and after an average of five hours, _destroyed_."

"No way!" the younger Thompson said with wide blue eyes. "You mean it just went _poof_ and blew up?"

"More like it was torn apart," Liz said weakly, dropping her hand from Kid's shoulder, which immediately felt cold. "Oh, Death – and if he's out, does that mean he has his _book_?"

"Yes," the Shinigami said bluntly. "The book with the spells required to do that in it. He also has Soul. We can't sense his wavelength – and now _we know why_."

"We have to call Maka!" she cried out, reaching into her pocket to find her phone. "They need to know what they're up against, and what'll happen if we don't get to him in time!"

"No. We need to go and help them. With Maka's purifying wavelength, we should be able to conquer the effects of such dark magic, but if there's any chance of defeating the warlock, we must use our power to do it. Call Death Scythe and alert him of the situation - " He was cut off when the mirror before him in his father's study began to pulse. He almost missed it over the light music he could still hear downstairs – to think that there was still a party going on in all this! – but someone was calling him directly.

Maka's face soon took up the space. There was dirt on her face, her eyes looked tired and her mouth was set in a grim line. Kid could see the paleness of her face and the way that she clenched her free fist against her trench coat. The degree to which her worry was overtaking her was almost painful for him and the Thompsons to see. She wasted no time with greetings, spitting out in a hurry, "He's not here!"

"What?" he replied, caught off guard as he was preparing to deliver information to her.

"He's _not here_," she said again, her breath weak. "We've searched everywhere. He's not here, we're sure of it! It's almost four-fifteen in the morning, Kid, and we _can't find him!_"

"We were wrong? But that's impossible! Where else could he be?" A cold feeling swept over him. How could they have gotten it wrong?

"Black*Star has checked _everything_, even the buildings nearby. We've searched the cellars of the places in a ten-mile radius, we've dug up plots and checked tombs, everything! I can't even get a scrap of his wavelength, but he isn't here! We only have two hours left, where do we go? What do we do? The paper _said_ he'd be here!"

All three of them blinked at her in shock through the mirror, and she stamped her foot impatiently, demanding a reply and uncaring that she was technically mouthing off at her God. "Maka, calm down," Kid said. "We need to tell you something."

"Calm down? _Calm down?_ Soul's going to be – you know what will happen if we don't find him in time, and you're telling me to calm down? Well you know what you should do? Go fu – "

A hand from off the mirror's view smothered her mouth and she thrashed angrily. The mirror was quickly moved from her grip into another's, and Black*Star's uncommonly serious face was peering back at him. The ninja meister was even more dirty, a thin sheen of sweat on his face. "You found something?"

"Black*Star," he greeted. "Jeno Vussien was a warlock, known for destroying souls. He's the one who has Soul now, and we need to find him before his wavelength is permanently ruined and he can't resonate."

"_Warlock?_" Black*Star exclaimed in shock and confusion, and Kid grit his teeth, not wanting to explain again. Nobody of their time knew of warlocks, and he should have been prepared for this, but he was too strung out to be patient.

"Yes. They exist. They all died out. One's been re-summoned. He hated my father, and he's taking revenge through Soul. He'll completely eradicate his soul and wavelength . . . by the time the sun comes up," he said in horrified realisation as the piece of the riddle fit into place for him. "The riddle said we had until sunrise. That means that Soul's already had the spell put on him – it takes five hours to work completely, so it would have been put on at about one o'clock, or slightly later . . ."

"Fuck!" the other boy swore loudly, and Kid heard Maka's breath hitch in her throat on the other end as she came to the same conclusion he had. "That means, if it takes that long to tear his soul apart . . ."

"Yes." The Shinigami's voice and face were grim, and it seemed as if everyone's next breath depended on the words he was about to say. "That means . . ."

But Maka beat him to it.

" . . . We might already be too late."

_This is Halloween.  
Everybody scream._

* * *

**THERE WILL BE A PART THREE NOW.**

**I'm so sorry to keep doing this to you, but the chapters are so long. 7k words each means I need to do separate chapters. The next one, though, I promise will be the final. I didn't anticipate how much I would need to explain and set up in this chapter. **


	3. 3 - What Have I Done? (Finale)

_**A/N: **__I do not own Soul Eater or Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Selick and scored by Danny Elfman._

_'Poor Jack' is my favourite song from the film, and due to the amount of material I need to cover with so limited an amount of songs left in the film, it's spread out throughout the beginning of this chapter and used repeatedly to build suspense, like cut scenes in a film. Hopefully this doesn't get too annoying._

_It's here! The third installation. This is where it all ends . . . (Potterhead FTW). Thank you for all the support I got in writing this, you guys were awesome! So, hopefully this doesn't disappoint as a result. _

_So long. Such a long time to write. I'm so sorry for the wait._

* * *

****

EVERYBODY SCREAM  
by Lisp.

_Spoiled all, spoiled all.  
Everything's gone all wrong._

__Breathing. It seemed like a simple enough chore. Done all the time, right? Just in, then out, in, and then out?

Then why couldn't he do it right? He could let it out in a cry, or gasp in pain, but he couldn't keep it solid. It felt all wrong, all of it. He'd been useless all his life, and now he couldn't even breathe properly. Typical. Had he ever been good at anything? It felt like there had been a time where he'd succeeded, some time ago, but whenever his mind tried to grasp at what felt like pleasant memories, they slipped away. Soul could visualise the colour green, and something like . . . blonde hair? Pigtails? Why would that make him good at something? Maybe it hadn't. Maybe nothing had.

That was why he was in this Black, right? There was a voice echoing in the back of his head, telling him to do something, _now_, before the Black Blood collapsed and he truly lost it. But who was the voice? It sounded gravelly, and he imagined horns whenever it sounded . . . Maybe it was the Devil, and he was in Hell. Maybe the Black was Hell. It hurt like it.

When had he been like this last? Was it when his chest had been cut open? Why did he have a scar like that? Did it hurt because he was stuck here? Did he deserve to be here? Would he get out?

Questions he couldn't answer. Breaths he couldn't take properly anymore. And everywhere, all around, nothing.

Nothing but Black.

_What have I done?  
What have I done?_

Her footfalls were getting heavier and heavier. Black*Star was asking her something, about whether she was okay, or maybe he was just hurrying her along. She didn't know. She didn't care. All of Maka's concentration was on one thing – locating Soul.

After Kid had told them that his soul might be – that it might not all work out all right – she'd started to send out her Soul Perception at full range. She hadn't been able to sense her partner's soul before their discovery, but now . . . Now she had to. There was no alternative. She needed to find him before there was nothing left to find.

But again, even as she sent out another probing wave of her Perception, her result left her with nothing but the souls that she'd sensed so many times before in the city. They were people she knew, people she even cared about in some cases, but none of them were _him_. The wavelength was wrong. She gritted her teeth, hanging her head as she continued on her mad dash. She'd failed again. This was by far the most important thing she'd ever used her special ability for, including trying to locate the Kishin Asura, and she couldn't even do it right.

Black*Star had made it to the top of the stairs by now, and she picked up her own pace. They were heading to Shibusen, all of them, so that they could regroup with Kid and discuss what to do. After all, they had nowhere to look now, did they? They'd thought they were so clever, solving that riddle in no time, but they'd been wrong, horribly and pathetically wrong! Nobody had even considered the fact that Hook Cemetery may not be the place in which Soul was being kept. They'd rushed out blindly, fuelled by panic, like the stupid children they were.

"Maka! Come on, we don't have time to be slow!" Black*Star yelled as she met him at the top of the impossibly long staircase. "Soul's waiting for us!"

"Just shut up," she said bitterly, breathing heavily from exhaustion. "For once in your life, just _shut up_."

He looked as if he was going to say something in reply, but at that moment Tsubaki began to glow. Maka shielded her eyes as the other girl transformed, landing lightly with a grim expression on her face. "Let's go, you two." Her eyes were pitying as they turned on the scythe-meister, but she couldn't take that. The pitying expression of one friend was almost as bad as the constant obnoxious yelling from the other. With quick steps, she pushed past them both and entered the school.

His face seemed to haunt her as she ran past the lockers. How many times had they stood here, arguing about stupid things or saying little comments that didn't matter? They'd talked about his partnership offers, her appeal as a girl, assignments and their friends, all of it. She'd taken all of those little moments for granted, never thinking that they might really come to an end this quickly, on Halloween of all days. She would never be so stupid again.

The Death Room was right there. Maka practically kicked the door open in her panic and hurry, and consequentially found herself in a half collision with her father, of all people. He looked down at her in surprise, but his expression quickly melted into one of sympathy as he took in her hunched shoulders and haunted eyes.

"Maka. Shinigami-sama is waiting for you," he said in a low voice, stepping aside. She nodded briskly, passing him without another look. He would become just another pitier soon, and she couldn't take that. She would make sure that there was no reason for anyone to pity her. A pitying face . . . that was like saying they'd all already given up.

Her steps slowed only when Kid and the Thompsons came into view. The Shinigami was clutching a thick tome as he frowned. Liz was glancing at it over his shoulder, and Patti was pointing to Maka to alert everyone else that she'd arrived.

"We need to figure out where he is," Kid said blankly, with no preamble. His shoulders looked slumped, but she ignored this. It looked too defeated. "We were clearly wrong about the riddle, in regards to Soul's location. We just need to re-think this, without acting rationally."

She nodded sharply again, not wishing to speak. Loud footfalls behind her alerted her to the other team's presence, Tsubaki giving the Thompsons and Kid a quick bow. "So," Kid pressed on. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Let us see that riddle thing again," Black*Star demanded, striding past Maka to snatch the piece of paper that Liz held out. "'_A place that sees no light_.' Huh. If not the cemetery, where does that mean?"

"Hmm . . . how about somewhere underground?" Spirit chimed in, having made his way back to the teenagers. "There sure isn't any light down there."

"That doesn't help us," Maka said irritably. "The whole city could still be in range, if that were the case. We need to narrow it down."

"Well, what's the deal with the part talking about dead guys?" Liz queried, taking the paper back from Black*Star. Maka clutched her own photocopy, staring intently at the words. "If not a cemetery, where else are we going to find dead people?"

"There aren't any other burial plots around," Kid confirmed. "That could be the only place. Unless they don't mean it figuratively . . ."

The gears in Maka's mind were starting to churn as she looked down at the burgundy ink. Something about the deliberate usage of the words seemed strange to her. While it fit with the rhyme, using the term 'will greet on their night of freedom' seemed sort of odd. What kind of a phrase was that? Besides, the dead didn't really get up and walk around on Halloween. They weren't really free. The only person who could be considered to have absolute freedom on Hallows Eve was Death, because it was a holiday celebrating his practices, but he was right here . . .

_Oh._

"So, do we investigate the cellars in the school – ?" Black*Star was asking, but she cut him off without a second thought, her voice loud and shaky as she came to the realisation that should have hit her straight in the face in the beginning. She _was_ an A grade student, after all.

"Shinigami-sama."

"What?" Kid said in confusion, turning to her with a frown. "I know that you call me Kid instead of my official title, why start now?"

"No, not _you_, Shinigami-sama!"

"Wh – my _father?_ What does he have to do with this?"

"There's a passage beneath the statue of Shinigami-sama in the city, isn't there? Where his tomb is held and where they keep all of the gifts and ceremonial items that they lay out on the memorial day?"

"Yeah," Black*Star said, "so?" But Maka could already see the realisation starting to dawn on Kid's face, and Liz was gripping his shoulder tightly now as it sunk in for her too. _'A place that sees no light; where the dead will greet.' _It fit. It all fit. The tomb was visited on Halloween, because a memorial ceremony to the former Shinigami-sama was performed at the midnight hour signifying the beginning of All Hallows Eve. That would satisfy the _'greet'_ part of the riddle. And there would be no light down there, would there? It was in an underground room, after all, like her father had said. That would be an ideal place to hold someone who was kidnapped, because it would be spacious and dark. It fit. It had to. She didn't know what she'd do if it didn't.

Kid blinked once before opening his mouth and taking a deep breath. She thought he might speak, but he looked troubled and let it fall closed again. Black*Star looked between them confusedly, trying to catch up with whatever they'd both figured out.

"It has to be, doesn't it?" Maka said desperately. "Kid, am I right? It's _got_ to be."

He shook his head slowly, but he still looked grim. "I agree. It fits perfectly – but . . ."

"But _what?_"

"What if we're wrong again?" he said, unwittingly speaking the exact fear on her mind. "It's already quarter past four. That leaves us exactly two hours. We don't have time to be incorrect, not again."

"Wait – so you think he's underneath that statue of the former Shinigami-sama, the one in the middle of the City near the fountain?" Liz cut in, her eyebrows drawn together as she read the riddle. "Well, I guess it _kind of_ fits . . . ?"

"So, if that's what you think it is, then why aren't we heading there already? Tsubaki, transform!" Black*Star commanded in a sharp voice as the girl turned to a bright flash of light. "There's no time to waste!"

"How long did we waste at Hook Cemetery?" the Shinigami inquired rhetorically. "If Soul isn't being held under the statue, we won't have time to think of any other options. We need to get them all out in the open now."

Maka interrupted once again, her arms crossed in agitation. "Kid – I think this is it. I think this is the answer to the riddle. Look at the by-line."

"What about it?"

"Jeno refers to this as a game. He's playing with us. He hated your father, right?"At the Reaper's solemn, she sighed. "What better thing to do to add to this horror than desecrate your father's tomb? It only makes sense."

Kid paused once more, but she could see his conviction of his own principles waning. Maka was right and she knew it. There were no other options than to check out this lead, especially because all of the pieces of the puzzle seemed to click with their solution. The young Shinigami nodded once, his shoulders slumping as he gave a jolting, symmetrical nod. "You're right. It does. We need to investigate this."

"_We?_" Black*Star probed. "So, you're coming too, even though you're a . . . even though you're meant to stay here unless shit gets really fucked up?" He'd caught himself before he could admit that his friend was a God. Crisis or not, it was _Black*Star_. That rivalry would always fuel the two boys' interactions.

"I am," the other meister nodded once, and Maka felt a half-smile grace her solemn and serious face. These two would never let anything happen to Soul. She should have known. "Death Scythe, you'll be in charge here. I want you to contact Stein and alert him of the situation, as I couldn't reach him before. Also, call in Kilik and the Pots if you can, in case we need them for back-up."

"B-but Shinigami-sama!" the red headed man protested. "Shouldn't I go with you if you're going to fight?"

"Liz and Patti will be my weapons for this. We took down a Kishin; we're more than capable of destroying one warlock," he replied with a grin. Liz and Patti nodded behind him, the younger raising a fist in the air joyfully at the thought of going out to fight again.

Spirit sighed resignedly. "Yes, sir. I'll make the preparations."

"Good. Now, you guys, let's go!"

"I'm going to kick that warlock's ass!" the ninja meister said with a determined grin, clenching Tsubaki in his fists and nodding. He turned to leave the Death Room, Kid following even as Liz and Patti transformed for him to catch. Maka started to go too, impatient as ever to leave and do _something_ to get Soul back, but was stopped by a hand on her arm. She looked up to her father, who was staring into her eyes with an uncharacteristically serious face.

"Maka – are you sure you should go?"

She wrenched herself from his grip immediately, her eyes widening in shock. What was he _saying?_ "What do you mean, '_should I go'_? How could I _not,_ Papa, it's _Soul_!"

"Exactly," the man replied, not shaken in the least as he watched the Shinigami follow Black*Star out of the Death Room. It was only the two of them now. "I don't know if you can handle this."

"I've fought countless witches, I fought _Asura –_"

"And how many foes have you fought _without_ him?"

That brought her up short. Stinging tears welled in her eyes, but she fought them down. It was pure anger, anyway. She needed to leave to save her stupid scythe now, and yet her own father of all people was trying to tell her that she wasn't strong enough? She didn't have time to let self-doubt creep into her system like it was now! "Papa," she said icily, making him flinch. "Move the Hell out of my way."

He looked as if he wished for nothing else than to obey her, but his eyes were apologetic like his hand movements as he said, "I can't. Not until I'm sure you're up for this. Now wait a second," he hastily said as she opened her mouth to yell at him, "I'm not saying you aren't tough enough, Maka. I know my little girl isn't so little any more. You're just as good, if not better, than your mother."

The flattery went unfelt to her as she continued to glare heatedly at him. He swallowed and continued, his gaze finally dropping from hers. "But – this isn't going to be like all of those other times. Soul has been influenced by this magic, if you're right, for three hours."

"All the more reason why I don't have time to listen to you!"

"What condition do you expect to find him in?" the Death Scythe finally managed, looking at his feet wearily as he reached out and put his hands on her shoulders, making her feel like a child again. "Honey, there's a good chance that he – that he might not be okay after all of this. It's serious spell-work. I've seen this sort of attack before, and usually it doesn't end well."

She froze in pushing him off of her at that. Her entire night had been spent focussing on a positive outcome for all this. She hadn't allowed herself to entertain those doubts that had been niggling away at her resolve. They were her own private fears that were better left unencouraged, so it was almost surreal, in a horrifying way, to hear the words come from someone else's mouth. Spirit cringed once more, lifting his head. His hair shadowed his face as he looked at her, and she could see dark rings of sleeplessness under his usually sparkling eyes, so much like hers in colour*. The one thing she'd gained from him, he'd always said.

"I'm sorry, Maka, but there's a possibility that he won't make it, and I don't think you're capable of being there to see it if that happens."

His words made sense. She knew they did, and she knew that, if things really did end so grimly, she would probably get herself killed by the warlock in seconds. But that would be worth it. Just a few seconds, because . . . Because if Soul died, what was her purpose anymore? She wanted to grow stronger for him; what was the point if he wasn't there to see her shine, and to be just as bright alongside her?

Spirit was obviously surprised when she lifted her own head, her eyes free of tears and her fists clenched not in grief, but in determination. "You're right," she said in a clear, hard voice. "If that happens, then I probably won't be able to stand it. But it won't. Soul made me a promise, you see. He told me he wouldn't leave. He wouldn't be game enough to break that promise, not as long as I've got books near me – I'd follow him into the next life and _kill him_." She smiled wryly at her own words. "I'm going to get him back, Papa. It's what you'd do for Mama."

The man sighed, but a small smile had lit his features as well. He let his hands drop from her shoulders, although one came to rest on her head affectionately. "Go on, then. I bet he's waiting for you."

And as he watched his daughter disappear down the corridor leading to the great doors, he couldn't miss the glow of passion that lit her features in a way that he hadn't seen for a long time. Not since _she'd _extended her hand to him, smile lighting up her features as her determined, hard eyes locked onto his.

_"My name's Kami."_

_In a million years they'll find me.  
Only dust, and a plaque._

__There was a distinguishable moment in which they all stood silently in front of the statue, pausing as they contemplated what they were about to do. All six of them would be forcibly entering the passages underneath this monolith so as to gain access to some of the most sacred rooms in the City, and maybe even the country. While it wasn't illegal to go down into the chambers here, seeing as Kid was accompanying them, Maka couldn't help but feel a shudder pass over her at the thought of needing to enter the room where the former Shinigami-sama's tomb was kept. While 'tomb' would be a loose phrase to describe the great thing, seeing as the Death God didn't have a corporeal body to bury, there was a large white marble slab with a few of his most precious items and the shards of his mask that had remained encased inside. It would be like entering a room where his body was on show for all to see. Something about it just wasn't right.

Kid, too, looked like he was suffering at the contemplation of defiling this place, battling in underground rooms where he'd knelt to visit the remnants of his father, but after a moment they shook their heads and made for the entrance. This came in the form of a great slab of stone that needed to be manually removed, built into the side of the base of Shinigami's statue. It was a bronze sculpture of him in all his glory, wearing his customary cloak, his mask seeming even in metal casing to radiate warmth and joy to all who paused to nod their heads respectfully at the monolith as they passed. Black*Star pushed aside the slab easily with his supernatural strength, and all three meisters were left to peer into the inky blackness that resided below.

"_It's so dark,"_ Patti said from her weapon form. "_How are we going to see down there, Kiddo?" _And she was right. There was no source of light anywhere to be had. It was already hard enough to see on the streets of Death City, due to the moon giving no natural opposition to the dark shadows anymore. Trying to make anything out in the tunnel before them was impossible.

Or so they thought. Before anyone could comment, the Shinigami meister closed his eyes. Little masks similar to that of the one he wore in the daytime emerged from under his dark cloak, and blue light shot from the holes of the eyes. They provided only a dim glow, but against the total blackness of the tunnels and the night sky that their eyes had adjusted to, the blue seemed to the group like the bright shine of a miniature sun. Without another word, the Death God began to descend the stairs leading down under the base, giving back a warning to the others to ensure they ducked their heads against the low ceiling.

"Like Maka's gonna' have that problem," Black*Star snorted, pushing past her to get down there. Letting Kid go first couldn't have been easy, no matter how much he'd grown up, and how much worry he held. She sighed, waiting for him and Tsubaki to pass before she, too, put her feet to the marble black staircase, half-closing the stone slab behind her to ensure nothing followed them down into the crypt.

The team was silent as they made their way through the corridors, which – thankfully for their craned necks – morphed into a higher ceiling as the steps went on. It didn't take long to reach the bottom, despite their descent leading them quite far underground. After they gathered on the lowest step, a brief quiet ensued. It just seemed wrong to speak in a place like this, so hallowed.

But she had to. "Right," Maka whispered. "We don't know if anything's down here, including Jeno. We need to be quiet and split up to look for Soul."

"_Should you really go by yourself, Maka?"_ Tsubaki asked fretfully. _"If you run into the warlock, you'll be defenceless."_

She snorted. "I'm tired, Soul's missing, and I'm _angry._ You should be more worried about what'll happen to _that _guy, if I run into him first."

Kid bobbed his head once tersely. "Good plan. Can you sense anything with your Soul Perception? I'm picking up _something_, but I can't tell what it is."

"Hold on." She closed her eyes, concentrating on stretching out her Perception through all the winding corridors of the underground labyrinth of rooms. There seemed to be nothing but a haunting silence, a dark coldness, a – _That spark_. "Yes. There's someone down here!" She focussed harder on the wavelength she could feel, her heart picking up speed as she contemplated it being Soul. "It feels pretty powerful, but there's something off about it."

"Like it's been twisted?" Black*Star asked sharply, but she shook her head. It wasn't Soul, she was almost disappointedly certain.

"More like – it's _dark_. It's like there's some form of Soul Protect on it, but I can almost pass that in any witch by now. It's not making the soul feel human – it's making it _invisible."_

Kid sucked in a breath. "And it's moving this way, quickly."

"Shit!" the other boy cursed under his breath. "We need to split now! Tsubaki, katana mode!"

_"Hai." _A bright light showed Tsubaki's transformation.

"Which way is that guy?" he asked under his breath. Maka pointed silently and he grinned. "I've got him. You guys look for Soul, okay?" Before he left, he laid one rough hand on Maka's shoulder. "He'll be fine. Just be quick." And with that, he was gone. Seconds after he left the blue light Kid was emitting, he became all but invisible to the other two.

Kid turned to her. "He won't need to see in this darkness, but you will. How are you going to navigate the corridors?"

She paused for a moment before an idea came to mind. She hadn't gotten changed like the rest of them before setting out on this desperate search, so in her now-gruesome attire, there was no room for a flashlight or anything of the kind. Her eyes flicked around desperately, trying to find something to aid her.

There was a heavy torch hanging from the wall, and she quickly wrenched it away, holding it in her hand. It would have a good swinging weight, she decided, meaning it could be used as a weapon if the situation called for it just as much as a light. Kid regarded it for a second before raising his hand, using his powers to manifest his wavelength. He wouldn't dare risk setting out a shot in this kind of environment, not with the wavelength presumed to be belonging to the warlock steadily gaining on them, so he merely pressed his hand over the torch and it sprung into life. Maka thanked him with a quick bow of her head.

"Good luck," she said, before disappearing down the corridor closest to her left. Black*Star had taken the right, and from the corner of her eye she saw Kid go straight forward. _Right in the middle – I bet his little symmetrical mind is singing, _she thought. They were all separated now, working toward the same goal.

_Bring Soul back. Defeat the warlock._

As she began to earnestly run, adrenaline kicking in at the thought of Soul's name, her heavy heart weighing her down further with her trepidation and need to see him all right again, she couldn't help but shiver at the thought of what she might find. He'd be okay. She'd make him be okay. But this was a place of burial, where a white marble tomb stood among seas of black, and it was chilling to contemplate the fact that there was a very real possibility that after tonight, there could be more than one final resting place down here, for the souls who had plunged into Death's cold chambers, whether it was for Jeno Vussien, for one of the team, for Soul, for her.

_And by God,  
I'm really going to give it all my might!_

__He had to be dead silent. Blend in with the black surrounding him like only he could. Use his senses to guide him, his skills to aid him, his soul to steady him. He could feel her, too, warm in his hands as he slowly advanced around another corner, his breath bated in anticipation of meeting the enemy. Black*Star gave Tsubaki a quick flip from one wrist to another, his ears straining to make out any sounds in this complete dark.

He'd visited quite a few rooms, trying to scout out this damn warlock, but he'd seen nothing besides the usual sacrilege equipment, the lecterns for speeches, and in one room, what looked like a great block. He hadn't wanted to examine that one too closely. So far though, no warlock, and no Soul.

He hoped Maka reached the scythe first. By the look on her face, she needed to see him as soon as possible, and as Black*Star knew of Soul's feelings for the girl, he doubted that he would want to see anyone else. If he could still sense her at all. If he was even still alive. While he had his faith in his best friend, he couldn't deny that the situation was bad. With tortures like the ones listed in that spell-book lined up, it would be hard for even a God such as himself to escape unscathed. What would it do to the weapon, who was already so full of Black Blood and so experimented on by witches?

That thought set the assassin's teeth on edge, and he had to concentrate on not letting a growl slip past his lips. Soul had already been through so much. All he wanted was for his bro to be able to be happy. Hadn't he and Maka suffered enough? Why did bad things keep happening to good people? He couldn't say, in his lifetime, that he'd seen that many truly _good_ people, not outside the staff of Shibusen – even if Professor Stein had his days and Death Scythe was scum when it came to thinking of others – but Soul, he was one of them. He was selfless, he was strong. While Black*Star was thought to be fairly unobservant and overall, an idiot, he wasn't. He could see the way his best friend gave things up for others. When Maka had befriended Crona, not a word was said by him on what he'd suffered. When Maka was chosen to fight Arachne on Medusa's squad, despite his protests, Soul had gone, for a swordsman who had infected him with liquid madness and ruined his chances of ever being completely sane again. He always gave things up for others. While he himself may have been a Bushin, and Kid was a God of Death, Soul would always, somehow, be the best of them, even if he never saw it.

Well, that, and he had some fucking restraint, taking all of those Maka-Chops without crying like a little bitch.

_"Black*Star," _Tsubaki whispered to him, sending his thoughts and focus down to her immediately. He could feel through her soul the slight twinge of an approaching wavelength, fainter than it usually was by far. Still, he melded into the shadows once more, holding his breath and waiting for his opportunity to strike. Here was the bastard that had hurt Soul, therefore breaking Maka, caused Kid to have to raid his own father's burial place, and made Tsubaki cry in worry. He was going to kill this fucker.

Right there, right then.

But as the wavelength approached, increasing speed, and became more clear, he realised it was more than just one. While his first thoughts were on the excellence of a bigger fight, he also noticed that there were _three_ oncoming intruders. Three that were almost too familiar as he jumped out, ready to fight, to cut and slash and . . .

"What are you _doing?_"

He eyed Kid, who was staring at him in shock, having narrowly avoided his killing blow, and let out his breath. _Damn_. He'd been about to claim the spotlight in this fight, but it had been just another rehearsal. He shrugged at Kid, pressing his fingers to his lips to signal quiet. "You're the one in the way. Just be quiet, I know this warlock dude is around here somewhere!"

"That he is," a cold, amused voice said before Kid could get a word out. "But don't worry about being quiet. It's a little late for that, anyway."

Both meisters turned towards the source of the voice, and were met with a bright green light radiating from the top of a cane, thinly outlining the silhouette of a man. Not much could be seen of him except his odd dress style, the cane, the tips of his black hair, and his eyes, which gleamed like coins in the harsh glow. Black*Star felt Tsubaki tense through their connection, and he felt his hand tighten on her grip as he stared at the green light the cane was emitting.

"Aw, _fuck_."

_Let's shout,  
Make a fuss,  
Scream it out!_

__  
She was facing what felt like the fiftieth dead end, clenching her fists in stressed frustration, when she heard the large shot. Maka's head whipped up in shocked surprise, immediately using her Soul Perception to check on her comrades. All five of them were still fine, but she could also tell that the flicker, that irregularity that they'd pinned down to be Jeno's wavelength, was with them. Did that mean they were fighting him now?

Her bangs fell forward to shield her eyes as she stared at her feet, conflicted. While her common sense and battle urges were telling her to hightail it over there and help out Kid and Black*Star, her heart was just screaming to _find Soul, find Soul, find Soul now!_ What should she do? The searching hadn't got her anywhere yet, and although it had only been twenty minutes, every second seemed like two hours. It was almost five in the morning now, which meant they had under an hour and a half left to find Soul, and work out how to get rid of the plague on his soul wavelength. The riddle had said that if they got to him before sunrise, he'd be okay, but what did they do to ensure that? Did they have to defeat Jeno? Capture him and force him to remove his own spell?

Another explosion sound made the walls shake slightly, and Maka covered her head as dust rained from the ceiling. Was this really safe, fighting down here? Probably not. Then again, _workplace health and safety while fighting_ wasn't really her top priority at that moment. She sighed, feeling tense with nerves. Whatever happened, it seemed that finding Soul would be useless for now, if she didn't know how to save his soul. She cursed herself for not thinking of this issue before. How could she be so rash and stupid? He was always teasing her for that . . .

_No. Stop._ One hand's fingernails dug into the flesh of the other forearm and she flinched, using the pain to ignore her consuming thoughts. There was only one course of action. She'd have to help her teammates fight Jeno Vussien.

Maybe it was always going to come to this. The riddle may have been aimed at and targeted at Kid, but in the end, this was always going to be her battle.

Maka growled as she turned, using her Soul Perception to navigate the dark halls, glad that she now had a definitive destination to reach. _That's it. Soul, when I find you, and when we fix you up, you are going to get the _biggest_ Maka-Chop of your life. And nobody is _ever _fucking with my partner's life again_.

If Soul could hear the vulgarity of the language her thoughts contained as she headed for battle, he would have cheered.

The crashing and explosive bangs only got louder as she approached, not worrying about being too stealthy and instead preparing herself for fighting without her weapon. She could hear voices, too, yelling in anger. That was a good sign. It meant Black*Star was pumped up, so he'd probably have the warlock in pieces by the time she got there.

_Wait, no_, she thought in horror. _What if we need him, what if Soul needs him to be alive?_ She picked up her pace, her feet hammering into the hard ground with every heavy, powerful step. If that idiot ended up ruining all of this because he couldn't keep his Death-damn egotistical bullshit in step . . .

_"Crap!"_ she hissed, ducking reflexively as something white-hot flew over her head. Had that been a bolt of . . . energy? It sure didn't feel like a wavelength shot, like Kid produced. The corner was right there, and she could see light glowing, as if someone had gone further down the tunnelling labyrinth and lit something on fire.

"Maka!" she heard Kid call, obviously sensing her presence. "Be careful, this is dangerous!"

Maka stepped around the corner cautiously – and paused. The sight before her was, in one word, bewildering. There was an unfamiliar man standing with his back to her, dressed in a classy dark-grey suit. His dark hair was almost resting on his shoulders, and he held one arm in the air lazily. It was crowned by two large-jewelled rings on his index and ring finger, and he clutched a thick book. In his other hand, he held a thin cane with a silver handle. There was some sort of pattern on it. It was glowing a bright green as he read from the book. That was slightly irregular, as far as sights went, but she was preoccupied with gawking at the two meisters in front of her.

They were in the air. It was like they'd been tied up with invisible ropes and strung up there, because they floated unnaturally as the two boys struggled. Black*Star looked livid, and she was astounded that he would be able to be held by one man. But then she saw it, the thin strand. It looked almost like fishing wire, and was tied around his left wrist. It connected to . . . Tsubaki's. The weapons were in their human forms, suspended in the air in the same way. It took only seconds for Maka's mind to deduce the situation. If Black*Star used his strength or his wavelength to free himself . . . it would shock Tsubaki. There was no way the ninja would risk hurting his weapon, she knew. Jeno had somehow played the ultimate trump card. Kid was in a similar situation. Liz and Patti were being held – and her stomach rolled at the sight – by their _necks_. Their other limbs were supported, but she guessed if the Shinigami moved too much, his weapons would pay the ultimate price.

The warlock did not immediately respond to her advance, instead muttering words from the book. It must have been the spell book he was renowned for, she realised. _"Cthiájon des nasuké. Jonbon des nasuké."_

"Shit," Liz hissed as she slipped slightly in the grip she was being held in. As Maka slowly began to creep towards him, she saw his features sharpen into a grin. He was angularly handsome, with his cheekbones and burning green eyes. Her stomach welled with hate.

The man chuckled, making the hair on her arms stand up. "I really do like playing these games with you children," he purred in a smooth voice. "That's why I stayed. I could have been freed, away from your little friend, untraceable. But I wanted to savour in the sound of his screams."

Maka bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming and attacking idiotically, hard enough to taste blood. _This asshole_.

"You're all _so_ predictable. Death taught you skill, but not cleverness. That is resigned to us elders. And yet," he cocked his head mockingly at Kid, "what does that make you, young Shinigami? For you are one like us. But I see that you are just as trusting and full of folly as your father. A fragment of a soul, exposed to more weakness."

Black*Star eyed Maka, opening his mouth to say something, but she shook her head furiously, hefting the torch and pressing a finger to her lips with the other hand. Jeno thankfully did not notice the blue haired meister's distraction as the blonde kept creeping closer.

"All of you are weak. Even you," he said, twisting his hand in Black*Star's direction. The boy stared as the cord on his wrist was jerked, and Tsubaki gave a small cry as blood welled on her wrist. "Ah, you fell for the weakness of affection. The most fun to manipulate." With that, he tapped his hand against the thread lightly, and the glow transferred onto the wire. _"Cantellás."_ The light shot up the binding onto Tsubaki's arm, and the poor ninja weapon leaned forward in her holdings despite herself, a harsh yelp coming out of her throat.

"Tsubaki!" the assassin yelled, before turning his eyes on Jeno. "I'm gonna' fucking _kill you – shit!_" The twined wire had pulled on his partner's arm even more. Fat drops of blood hit the floor."

Kid was staring at Maka intently as she watched with wide eyes Tsubaki's torture. He gave an almost imperceptible nod of the head, and she lifted the torch heavily.

The warlock was almost gloating in his aristocratic voice now. "A Bushin, a Shinigami, a Dark Arm, the famous Devils of Brooklyn. All of you, just toys. The only one of you that put up a good fight was the Death Scythe. And where might he be? Corroded, collapsed, with a wavelength that has fractured beyond repair, waiting for those who never came. Well, it will be fitting. I've defiled the once-great Death's final resting place. Why not decorate it with the blood of the team who defeated the Kishin, and the only son that he loved so dear? You and _Soul_ can be a matching set!"

The mention of Soul's name coming from those lips, along with the warlock confirming all of her deepest fears regarding her partner, brought forth a sort of animalistic rage from Maka. Her coherent thoughts and plans to incapacitate Jeno flew out the window, along with her pact of stealth. She let forth an enraged cry, swinging her arm. The warlock could only half-turn in shock before she screeched with fury, tears burning in her eyes as she brought the heavy torch down to his face. The impact was severe, smashing into his jaw and throwing him back. The invisible wires suspending her friends slipped, and Tsubaki fell to the ground with a _thud_ at the same moment that Kid caught Liz from choking to death. Patti wrapped an arm around her sister worriedly, rubbing her own neck.

Black*Star took one look at the blood on Tsubaki and her pained expression, and gave an inarticulate roar. He pushed Maka roughly out of the way as she stood above Jeno, and laid his fist into the other man's gut. As the warlock spit blood angrily, preparing to stand, the ninja pushed his wavelength into his stomach in a sickening blast. "_Soul Force, you sick motherfucker!"_

"Black*Star, no!" Maka screamed, but the assassin did not hear her. He continued his attack, and Jeno tipped his head back in a silent cry as his body was fried. A moment later bright lights joined in with the carnage, and the blonde meister was helpless to watch as Kid began firing his twin pistols into the warlock's body, supporting his friend's attack.

"You will _not _defile my father's tomb! You will _not_ treat my friends this way! You will _not_ hurt my girls!" he yelled in an uncharacteristic way, firing with more vigour. "I will end you, in the name of _Honourable Father!"_

One great light erupted from the boys' combined attacks, and Maka shut her eyes, screaming for them to stop, but it was no good. Seconds later, the sound of the explosions halted completely, and they pulled back, wiping grime from their faces.

Jeno had . . . exploded. There was no other way to put it. He had tried to fight the Bushin and the Shinigami of Shibusen, the forces powerful enough to defy gravity and change the physics of battle without batting an eyelid. What a poor idea. He should have just escaped when he could of. If only he weren't so immersed in his riddles, and his games . . .

His soul was greenish-tinted. Green like the light of his cane, which lay snapped in half beneath it like a faithful watchdog. It contrasted with red showering the wall, the three meisters and the weapons who all breathed heavily as they stared at the work that had been done.

All Maka could manage was, _"No,_" before she sunk to the ground, tears beginning to fall as she stared at that little ball of light. They'd destroyed him. She was sure they would need Jeno to save Soul. And they'd destroyed him. They'd torn apart the chance to save her partner. The blood make-up on her neck and dress mingled with authentic lifeblood as the rest of her team turned to her in shock.

"Maka, what's the matter?" Black*Star asked worriedly as he crouched beside Tsubaki, helping her stand. "That guy was just lying about Soul, time's not up yet – "

"You've ruined everything."

Kid leant forward. "_What?"_

_"You've ruined everything!"_ she screamed, lifting her head suddenly. "You idiots, you_ fucking idiots_, you – you've – how could you?" And with that, she put her hands to her mouth to stifle back sobs.

"What are you talking about?"

"_Jeno – _how do we remove the spell from Soul now?"

The other meisters stared at her for a long second. The moment seemed to stretch out as the horror dawned on them. "No," Black*Star said roughly. "No."

Kid had begun to cuss. "How could we not think? Maka, I'm so, we're so sorry . . ."

"It doesn't matter! You've fucked everything! How could you?"

The ninja fell to the ground, Tsubaki leaning heavily against him as both let their own guilt hit them.

"Maybe there's still time," Liz cried. "We just need to find him, we can figure something out, we have an hour left."

But Maka didn't hear it. Because in her sudden passion, in her pain, she had reached out for Soul, desperate, horrified, terrified.

And she had felt his wavelength.

Her head tipped back completely, her eyes blanking as she gave all her energy to his soul. Where, she'd seen it, she'd felt it – _there!_ "Shut up! Soul!"

"What?"

"I – Soul!" she cried out again, shooting to her feet. All other thoughts left her mind once again. _Find Soul. Now._

She was running, no light to guide her, before the others could even blink.

_My dearest friend, if you don't mind,  
I'd like to join you by your side.  
Where we can gaze into the stars,  
And sit together,  
Now and forever._

She stared. It was hard to look at, and yet she couldn't tear her gaze away. Her eyes burned for looking so long.

The manacles were bulging from the wall as if he'd tried to tear them out. There was a thick caking of dried blood on his wrists. His hair looked dirty and there was more blood on the crown of his head, as if he'd hit it against the wall. His arms were the only things keeping him up. His red waistcoat, once so stunning on him, was now ripped and splattered in dirt and a much darker tint of scarlet. Within seconds she was on her knees beside him, her hands reaching out to touch him, ensure that he was real. It had only been about eight hours since she'd seen him last, but now she had to assure herself that he was real, he was here, he was alive.

He didn't look it. In fact, his pulse was so weak that if it weren't for the tiny sparks of his wavelength that she felt when touching him, she'd have thought he was truly gone forever. But he wasn't. He was here.

All that time searching, and he'd been under Shinigami's statue all along. Directly under it, in a room that had been overlooked because the door was to the right of the staircase. Jeno must have been cloaking Soul's wavelength while he was still alive, and now it was too weak to support itself. All Maka could do was reach out her hand helplessly, her lips mouthing his name as she stroked his hair back from his face.

Her hand froze in shock when she saw that his eyes were open. The red was dull, the gaze unfocussed, but he was staring at the ground between them. "Soul," she whispered in a tiny voice, waving her hand in front of his eyes. "Soul. _Soul_, look at me."

No response. He was too far gone. She closed her eyes. If this was how he was going to be, she had no choice but to resonate with him and pull him back. She'd done it before. She focussed in on him, the scent of blood, his cold skin against her palms – and paused.

There was nothing to connect to. His wavelength was too distorted. It paused, and the steady tempo that she knew him for, the unbreakable rhythm set into him by his musical nature, was silent. He would have been fuming, had he been awake to hear this calamitous failure at scoring. It was not Soul at all. His soul shuddered, shook and at times felt so close to the brink of crumpling in on itself that the blonde meister had to catch her breath in her throat to stop herself from screaming.

Kid, Black*Star, Tsubaki, Liz and Patti were all waiting outside. They'd accepted what she could not, and wept silently. It was her time to grieve. She had known him like no other, loved him like no other.

But they were wrong. She still did know and love him. He wasn't dead, damn it! She tried resonance again. Once. Twice. Three times.

Nothing.

Silence.

An erratic beat, with no structure.

Silence.

A wavelength that was crumbling.

Silence.

A boy that was dying.

Silence.

A girl that was dying along with him.

"Soul!" Maka cried out, ignoring the tears of frustration and grief that rolled freely from her face. "Soul! _Soul Evans! _You wake up right now, do you hear me?" She let her anger give way and roughly shook his shoulder. His manacles creaked, but he didn't move, staring into nothing, silent.

"_Soul! I'm fucking talking to you!_ Are you listening? Death, you never _listen!"_ More shaking. More silence. "I hate you! How can you sit there right now? Can't you see I need you? Now wake up!"

She was furious. Blindly so. She had not spent her night and morning in such efforts to lose now. Maka Albarn never lost. Soul may be an idiot to try and stop her, but he wouldn't succeed. She'd win this argument. "Get up, you lazy idiot! I need you to get up!" There was so much left to say.

_I love you. Don't leave me. _

"You never let me tell you!" she cried out suddenly, clutching his shoulders and slamming him against the wall, once, twice. "You told me, Soul!" She was breaking. He was silent. "You _said! You promised! _Was that all just bullshit from you?" Once, twice, breaking, silence. "You told me you would never leave me! You told me you'd be different to my father! You_ fucking promised to stay! _Soul! Are you listening? Are you just going to break your promises like that?"

His eyes were blank, he was blank, he was silence, he was nothing. She screamed in frustration, her hands dropping from him and her words coming out in broken, disjointed sobs. "I love – you, I always did and I – _can't_ go on without you – and now you're gone when you said – you wouldn't go! You're so full – of shit! I need you – I don't mind when you – leave the TV on when you go to – bed, or when you have a nightmare and I – sit up with you to eat cereal, even if I say – I do! I like your – stupid hair and your music – is the most beautiful thing I've ever- heard! You make me laugh – when you sing along to musicals on the television – with the funniest voices, and your – bed hair isn't stupid, I only said it was because you looked cute and I didn't want you to – to – know, and you're a _good_ cook, you're just – bad at desserts, and you aren't – lazy, and you're the best partner ever, and – I – I – I love you! Come back, now!"

If her life were a book, he would wake to those words. But it wasn't.

He didn't.

_"Soul!"_ she cried, but when she grabbed him again, it was to cradle his head against her. "_I love you! I hate you! I do! Come back now, or I'm never talking to you again, got it? Now!"_

Nothing.

_"I am your meister and you will do what I say!"_

Silence. At this point, his bloodied arms were so lubricated that his hands slipped from their manacles, the torn skin shedding. He fell against her completely and she held him close, her face buried in his neck, her tears hot and thick-flowing, her voice mangled and furious. She'd come so far.

"No! I hate you!" She held him closer. "You said you'd never lie to me, and lying isn't cool! You taught me – I trusted men again, after you, and now it was all a lie? _You bastard!_" She'd fought so hard. _"Bastard!" _She clutched at his neck with one hand, feeling his wavelength short out for a longer period than before as his pulse slowed – slowed –

Stopped.

Her face froze in his neck. His wavelength froze in time. There was one unbearable moment in which all she could think was _NoPleaseNotHimNotHimTakeMePlease_. And then.

_"Maka – CHOP!" _She smashed her fist into his head, dropping him. "Maka Chop! Chop!" Her arm fell heavily onto him. "Chop! Chop!" She persisted in her abuse. "Chop! Maka-Chop! Chop . . . _chop . . ._" and then she broke. She leaned down and pressed her lips roughly against his. He tasted of blood. Her mouth slid off of his, breaking her empty kiss as her head bowed down to the ground, her cheek against his neck, her hands around his head cradling it and her body collapsed in the picturesque image of a destroyed human being.

Everything was over.

She was over.

It was all over.

His pulse on her face was her only comfort as she held herself against him.

. . . _His pulse?_

She gasped, sitting up hurriedly and staring down at him. Something thick lined her face and when she stared at his wrists, they were no longer red. They were _black. _Like night, like his blood. It took a moment of desperate searching, hoping, needing –

And then his wavelength erupted behind her eyelids in the most brilliant resonance she had ever felt. The sound, feeling, sense of his soul surrounded her, taking her breath away and making her fall back. It felt so foreign at the same time that it was natural. She took it in greedily, like breathing, her eyes closed, her fists clenched as she desperately held onto this link. Had she died? She didn't care. This might have been a dream, her losing her sanity over his body, but she didn't care. It didn't matter.

He was alive. In this moment.

" . . . _Ugh, fuck, what the fucking _fuck_ did you fucking do to my _fucking_ head?"**_

Her head whipped up, her eyelids springing open, as she watched the Black Blood replace the red in Soul's hair. He was half-sitting, breathing heavily, clutching his head and looking around him in complete and utter bewilderment, as if not knowing how he got there at all. When he moved his hands he cried out in pain, staring at his wrists as his Blood began to heal them. Dimly, her mind registered that the contact with her Grigori wavelength and his Black Blood must have restarted his systems. His soul must have been supported. If she'd checked, she would have found her partner's soul surrounded by his Blood, knitting together the fractured wavelength and fixing his body. If she'd looked into his eyes, she would have seen the blankness of mind be replaced by the memories of what had happened to him, and the sheer look of horror on his face. If she'd checked behind her, she would have heard Kid gasp at the sudden ability to sense Soul's presence again. If she'd looked at her lap, she'd have seen the tears that had accumulated there. If she'd been glancing at Soul, she'd see that his body sagged as the pain caught up, his eyes lighting up as he went to reach for his chest.

But she didn't.

Because she was already smashing her face into his chest, her arms wrapping around his stomach. He hissed in pain for a second, but then his nose was pressing against her collar bone, his arms encircling her back and his grip tight as he breathed into her neck, inhaling the smell and the feel of her, both covered now in blood, neither caring.

"_Holy shit,"_ he whispered, his lips touching her skin lightly. _"Holy shit, holy shit, what . . ."_

"Soul!" she cried into his shirt, clutching him and sobbing, and she could feel the brokenness of his breathing pattern, his panic increasing as he held her. "Don't you ever, don't you _ever_ do this again! I fucking – I fucking hate – I hate you . . ."

He was alive. He was face-deep in the makeup she'd put on for her costume, she was dirty and sore, they were in a dark cellar where the only light came from torches beside them, it was so early, she'd had no sleep, she'd fought without him, she didn't care, she loved him, he was here.

He said nothing, his words subsiding into merely saying her name once, his head tipping forward more as his body sagged onto hers, his full pain finally taking over him.

They did not move when the rest of the team came in.

They did not move as Stein and Spirit arrived with Kim, Kilik and Marie, Kilik running down quickly into the chambers to locate them and pull them out to safety.

They did not move.

They did not need to.

There was no blood, no pain, no nothing. Just her, and him, their souls meshing as their embrace did, the silence filled. The Black lightened.

Distantly, above the tunnels of Death's memorial tomb, the sun peeked over the skyline, and for once, they did not hear its heavy breaths.

_For it is plain as anyone can see,  
We're simply meant to be._

__They stood solemnly in front of the white marker, their heads bowed, their hands clasped tight. It was for only a moment, before she felt him squeezing her palm, and she nodded, the two leaving the room with slow echoing steps. They did not glance at the black walls, cleaned and now free of the blood and gore, nor the doors that led into rooms they wished they'd never visited. Both just kept their eyes on their feet until they reached the top stairs, pushing aside the stone slab and leaving the stone corridor with a duck of their heads at the low ceiling.

His bike was waiting for them beside the fountain. He climbed on and she got on the back, her arms weaving naturally around his waist. He leaned back for a moment, and she pressed her lips against his cheek. She felt him grin, his hand cupping her knee that sat beside him from their position on the bike.

"Where to?" he asked with the smile aimed only at her, only ever for her.

"Wherever you want to go," she replied with a grin. "Maybe we should get some lunch?"

"Good idea. I'm starved."

"You're always hungry."

"Shut up, you."

"You know," she said as she rested her cheek against his back, him starting the motorbike up with a dull roar. "Liz was talking about holding a Ball this time next week to celebrate the New Year . . ."

_"No_,"he cut her off. "Don't even think about it. I'm not going. No."

"I was just saying . . ."

"No. I'm sleeping through it."

"You hate all holidays now."

"With good reason!"

"Don't be such a party pooper!"

"That's what you said_ last _time, and look how that went!"

"Ugh, whatever," she said, pressing her face into his shoulder blade. "Just shut up and drive. And by the way, Merry Christmas."

"_And a crappy New Year,_" Soul grinned, turning and giving Maka a quick kiss. She smiled against his lips, putting a hand on his shoulder –

And then he leaned back on the bike, flipping the kickstand and causing her to fall off, flat on her butt.

He wouldn't survive til New Years with the look she was giving him.

_Maybe this is where I'm meant to die, after all_, he said, pressing down the pedal and driving off before she could jump up, laughing all the way like a madman as she screeched and began to chase after him, whipping out a book from under her trench coat. "_Soul! Get back here, right now!"_

_"Merry Christmas to you, too!"_

**Everybody Scream.**

**In our town of Halloween.**

* * *

**END.**

* * *

Footnotes

* - In the manga, Spirit has the green eyes Maka inherits. Not her mother.

** - I am so sorry for the absolute exploitation of the 'potty-mouth' Soul here, but he got Chopped about ten times. And beaten up. And killed for a few moments.

* * *

_10,000 word chapter. Ouch. _

_Thank you for your support through this. It was amazing.  
Happy (late) Halloween, happy Thanksgiving.  
Love (or mutual like if you're socially awkward like me and can't deal with emotions),  
Lisp. _


End file.
